Air pollution accountability of energy transitions: the relative importance of point source emissions and wind fields in exposure changes

Recent studies have sought epidemiological evidence of the effectiveness of energy transitions. Such evidence often relies on so-called "natural experiments," wherein environmental and/or health outcomes are assessed before, during, and after the transition of interest. Often, these studies attribute air pollution exposure changes-either modeled or measured-directly to the transition. We formalize a framework for separating the fractions of a given exposure change attributable to meteorological variability and emissions changes. Using this framework, we quantify relative impacts of wind variability and emissions changes from coal-fired power plants on exposure to SO2 emissions across the United States under three unique combinations of spatial-temporal and source scales. We find that the large emissions reductions achieved by United States coal-fired power plants after 2005 dominated population exposure changes. In each of the three case studies, however, we identified periods and regions in which meteorology dampened or accentuated differences in total exposure relative to exposure change expected from emissions reductions alone. The results evidence a need for separating meteorology-induced variability in exposure when attributing health impacts to specific energy transitions.