Equity Metrics for Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Phaseout

To confront the climate crisis, we must phase out fossil fuels. This process of phasing out fossil fuel infrastructure has already started, but current projections indicate that it is far from enough to meet emissions targets. However, fossil fuel phase out can have far-reaching equity impacts as health benefits and employment losses will vary across communities.

Explore this page to see equity metrics based on the three dimensions of health, access, and livelihood. This framework can be used as a starting point to evaluate the equity and justice impacts of fossil fuel infrastructure phaseout initiatives.

Health Dimension

Indicator

Proximity to hazard

Pollutant Exposure

Health outcome

Health monetization

Metric

Proximity of fossil fuel infrastructure

Density of fossil fuel infrastructure

Community pollutant concentration and exposure

Occupational pollutant concentration

Incidence and risk of disease

Adverse birth outcomes

Avoided premature mortality

Monetized health benefits or costs

Reduction in absolute PM2.5 pollution burden (%), relative air pollution exposure between racial/ethnic groups, pollutant concentrations relative to federal guidelines, projected relative PM2.5 exposure across racial and income groups

Cumulative health benefits ($), annual health benefits ($ year -1)

Measurement

Cumulative population living near FF infrastructure (#), proportion of population compared to proportion of population living near FF infrastructure (%) by race and ethnicity, likelihood of power plant siting by neighborhood grade (%)

km of natural gas pipelines/km 2 of land

Pollutant concentration relative to occupational standards (%), pollutant concentration (g m -3 )

Relative cancer and subchronic disease risk by proximity, risk of disease associated with exposure (odds ratio)

Change in preterm birth probability with increasing proximity to power plants (%), preterm birth rate associated with power plant retirement (%), change in fertility rates (births per 1000 women)

Cumulative avoided premature mortalities (#), monthly mortality rate reduction (%), annual avoided premature mortalities (# year -1), share of premature mortality by region (%), historical mortality rates by subpopulation (# per 100 000 people)

  • In the United States, an estimated 17.6 million people live within 1600 m of an active oil or gas well (Czolowski et al 2017) and an estimated 6.1 million people live within 3 miles of an oil refinery (U.S. EPA 2015)

    Approximately 5.4 million people live within one mile of an oil or gas well in California, with more than one-third (1.8 million) of these people living in the most pollution-burdened communities according to CalEnviroScreen scores (Srebotnjak and Rotkin-Ellman 2014)

    In an analysis of fracking wells in Colorado, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Texas, People of Color disproportionately live near fracking wells, with the effect ranging between states. For example, although Black Americans represented 8% of Oklahoma’s population, they represented 28% of the population living within 1.5 km of a fracking well (Zwickl 2019) US neighborhoods that were historically ‘red-lined’ (assigned a D-grade by the US federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation) are associated with a higher risk of power plant siting upwind and within 5 km; these red-lined neighborhoods had a 72% higher likelihood of power plant siting between 1940 and 1969, 20% higher likelihood between 1970 and 1999, and 31% higher likelihood between 2000 and 2019 compared to C-grade neighborhoods (Cushing et al 2023)

  • Counties in the highest quartile of the social vulnerability index have a mean density of 7.5 km of pipeline per 100 km2 of land area compared to counties in lowest quartile with a mean density of 4.5 km of pipeline per 100 km2 of land area (Emanuel et al 2021)

  • The retirement of 92 coal-fired power plants in the US from 2015 to 2017 decreased PM2.5 emissions overall, but decreases were not proportional; White subgroups had an 11% reduction in absolute pollution burden compared to a 5% reduction in non-White subgroups (Richmond-Bryant et al 2020) While exposure to industrial air pollution declined on a national scale between 1994 and 2005 in the US, disparities in exposure remained consistent with African Americans still exposed to more than 1.5 times more air pollution than their White counterparts (Ard 2015)

    A community-based exploratory study measured air quality near unconventional oil and gas production areas and found levels of eight volatile chemicals that exceeded federal guidelines, including benzene by 35–770 000 times background levels, hydrogen sulfide by 90–60 000 times, and formaldehyde by 30–240 times (Macey et al 2014)

    Without implementing targeted decarbonization policies for the electric power system, high poverty communities and Black communities may face 26%–34% higher PM2.5 exposure over the energy transition compared to the national average; however, certain decarbonization pathways can reduce this inequality faster than others (Goforth and Nock 2022)

  • Exposure to respirable crystalline silica has been identified as an occupational hazard in hydraulic fracturing sites, with over 51% of air samples exceeding OSHA’s permissible exposure limit (PEL) and over 83% of samples exceeding the threshold limit value (TLV) recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) (Esswein et al 2013)

    An analysis of coal mine dust samples in the US found a geometric mean of 0.02 mg m−3 for respirable quartz with over 15% of samples exceeding the federal exposure limit and certain occupations and regions facing higher exposure levels (Doney et al 2020)

  • A risk assessment of a natural gas development in Colorado estimated that residents living within 1/2 mile from wells experience greater health risks than residents living further than 1/2 mile, including 1.67 times higher cancer risks and 10 times higher subchronic non-cancer hazard index (McKenzie et al 2012) In Taiwan, children living in areas with the highest petrochemical air pollution exposure had 1.75 times higher risk of developing leukemia compared to children living in areas with the lowest exposure (Weng et al 2008)

    In Colorado, children ages 5–24 with acute lymphocytic leukemia were 4.3 times more likely to live near oil and gas wells than children with non-hematologic cancers (McKenzie et al 2017)

    A community comparison study found that a community living near a retired oilfield in New Mexico was ten times more likely to have a rheumatic disease or systemic lupus erythematosus compared to their unexposed counterparts (Dahlgren et al 2007)

  • Oil and gas power plants were found to increase adverse birth outcomes in pregnant women in Florida with each 5 km increase in proximity leading to an increased probability of 1.8%–2.2% for preterm delivery (Ha et al 2015)

    In California, power plant retirements were associated with a reduction in preterm births from 7.0% to 5.1% within 5 km as well as increased annual fertility rates per 1000 women by eight births within 5 km and two births within 5–10 km (Casey et al 2018a, 2018b)

  • Research on decommissioning coal-fired power plants in the Eastern US revealed that a 1 µg m−3 reduction in PM2.5 concentrations leads to a 1.7% lower monthly mortality rate in individuals over 65 years old, or 7.17 fewer deaths per 100 000 per month (Fan and Wang 2020)

    Decommissioning two coal-fired power plants in Colorado was projected to result in approximately two avoided premature deaths in the region per year due to reduced PM2.5 exposure (Martenies et al 2019)

    Approximately 92% of deaths related to power plant emissions from 2010 to 2018 occurred in low-income or emerging economies, but models suggest that strategic fossil fuel power plant retirements can improve health outcomes in these regions. In 2030, early retirement could reduce PM2.5-related deaths by 77 000 in China and 136 100 in India compared to a scenario with strong pollution controls and historical retirement trends (Tong et al 2021)

    In 2018, the US average mortality rate associated with coal power plant emissions was 3.60 deaths per 100 000 people, but there were disparities in mortality rates between population subgroups—for example, lowest income group (3.87) compared to highest income group (3.22), rural communities (5.97) compared to urban communities (3.09), and Black populations (3.88) compared to average US population (3.60) (Mayfield 2022)

  • Decommissioning two coal-fired power plants in Colorado was projected to result in estimated health benefits of $270 million over the remaining lifespan of the plants from 2020 to 2035 (Martenies et al 2019)

Access Dimension

Resource availability

Program participation

FF transition policy or program availability

Benefits and funding allocation

Presence of just transition legislation by state; proportion of bills including various transition support resources

Proportion of program funding granted by region, project type, and career sectors (%)

Decision representation

Community consultation and collaboration

Proportion of transition bills requiring community involvement in decision-making

  • Researchers surveyed state-level just transition legislation in the US and found that nine states had enacted a total of 16 bills related to the coal transition (Wang et al 2022)

    Of the 16 transition-related bills across nine states, seven bills included assistance (e.g. worker training and education) for displaced coal workers; seven bills included policies for infrastructure development or reinvestment in coal communities; one bill provided funding that can be used to address the cultural impacts of the coal transition; and three bills included provisions to help communities build local capacity to access these transition support resources (Wang et al 2022)

  • Over 75% of funding from the POWER Initiative was allocated to just five states: Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia; 79% of coal counties across the US had no grant recipients (Shelton et al 2022)

  • While 8 of the 16 transition bills include some type of stakeholder advisory group to assist in decision-making, only two bills include specific mandates for public meetings to guide coal recovery (Wang et al 2022)

Indicator

Metric

Measurement

Livelihood Dimension

Employment

Wealth

Number of jobs

Distribution of jobs

Government revenue

Cumulative jobs (#), job-years (#), sectoral share of total employment by county (%)

Proportion of workers represented by a union by sector (%)

Annual government revenue ($ year -1), change in revenue (%), cumulative lost tax revenue ($), annual lost tax revenue ($ year -1)

  • Only 29% of China’s coal mining areas are suitable for solar power generation and only 5% are suitable for wind power generation; nearly all of India’s coal mining areas are suitable for solar, and almost none of the areas are suitable for wind. A majority (62%) of US coal mining areas are suitable for solar but only 7% of the areas are suitable for wind; 96% of Australia’s coal mining areas are suitable for solar power generation, with around 4% suitable for wind (Pai et al 2020)

    In the Appalachian basin from 2004 to 2016, the share of shale gas employment ranged from less than 1% of total employment in urban counties to over 60% of total employment in rural and high-producing counties (Mayfield et al 2019)

Compensation

Union membership

  • Projections for a well-below 2 ◦C warming scenario estimate that global fossil fuel jobs will decline from today’s 12.6 million jobs to approximately 3.1 million jobs by 2050 (Pai et al 2021)

    A study of coal-fired power plant closures in Adams County, Ohio found that the decommissioning of two facilities would result in more than 1100 lost jobs (Jolley et al 2019)

    From 2004 to 2016, the shale gas sector in the Appalachian basin supported approximately 469 000 direct and induced job-years (a job for one person over a single year) (Mayfield et al 2019)

  • While natural gas and coal employees have a median hourly wage of $30.33 and $28.69, respectively, wind and solar employees are at $25.95 and $24.48 (NASEO, EFI and BW Research 2021)

  • Natural gas, oil, and coal electricity generation have higher rates of union representation (16%–17%) than solar and wind (10%–11%). However, fuel extraction, mining, and processing have lower rates of unionization ranging from 7% for oil and gas to 12% for coal (Herschell et al 2022)

  • Fossil fuels generated $138 billion in annual US government revenue from 2015 to 2020, and these revenues will decline 16%–80% by 2050 depending on the transition scenario (Raimi et al 2022)

    A study of coal-fired power plant closures in Adams County, Ohio found that the decommissioning of two facilities would result in $8.5 million in lost tax revenue for local governments (Jolley et al 2019)

    Projections of decarbonization pathways for California’s oil sector from 2020 to 2045 estimate annual tax revenue losses for counties ranging from less than $1 million up to $27 million compared to a business as usual scenario (Deschenes et al 2021)

Indicator

Metric

Measurement

Proportion of coal mining regions suitable for RE development (%), sectoral share of total employment by county (%)

Median hourly wage ($ h -1)