Transboundary air pollution from coal-fired power generation

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 2020-09, Vol.270, p.110862-110862, Article 110862
• Main Authors: Du, Xinming, Jin, Xiaomeng, Zucker, Noah, Kennedy, Ryan, Urpelainen, Johannes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Air pollution; Coal-fired power generation; HYSPLIT; Negative externalities
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110862

To what extent do the short-term negative externalities of fossil fuel use traverse national borders? Transnational negative externalities are thought to motivate international environmental cooperation, but we often lack detailed data on their occurrence. Using a Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model (HYSPLIT), we offer global estimates of the extent of transboundary air pollution from coal-fired power generation. In an advance of the existing literature, we attribute the air pollution experienced in different locales to specific coal-fired power plants, allowing us to evaluate the extent to which pollution from the coal industry is experienced across different jurisdictions. Our results indicate that the issue is most severe in South Asia and East Asia. When weighting by the population of “receiving” locations, India is found to be the largest emitter of transboundary air pollution, followed by China. Residents of Bangladesh are found to experience the most transboundary air pollution by a wide margin. •We describe flows of transnational pollution produced by coal-fired power plants.•We combine a global dataset of coal plants and an air particle trajectory model.•Transboundary pollution is found to be most concentrated in South and East Asia.