By Xime Trujillo 

When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing carbon sinks, and promoting adaptation to a changing climate, solutions abound. Implementing these solutions through policy, however, is anything but simple. Taxes and regulations are often part of the discussion, but "both of these are tough measures to implement, and they get all sorts of resistance," explains Steven Kimbrough, professor at the Department of Operations and Information Management at the Wharton School. As leaders of the Public Deliberation on Climate Transitions and Wellbeing Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII) research community, Kimbrough and Rand Quinn, associate professor at the Graduate School of Education, are studying an alternative. Their focus lies in exploring the ways that addressing climate change through policy can improve people’s quality of life through “co-benefits,” the outcomes that can accrue alongside the primary aim of climate action. 

Climate policy and well-being

While some may be persuaded by economic and scientific arguments, focusing on quality of life offers two main advantages when it comes to understanding public opinion about climate policies, Kimbrough and Quinn note. 

First, factoring in co-benefits addresses "the problem of only a few paying for climate actions while everyone benefits," Kimbrough notes. In other words, everyone would benefit from the better living conditions and health outcomes of addressing climate change, however, most people don’t consider those improvements when climate policies are raised, especially when they come with costs for things like electric vehicles or higher energy prices. Considering co-benefits allows a broader public to understand how climate transition policies can lead to outcomes they value more than the abstract notion of addressing climate change.   

Second, while the science supporting climate transition policy may be difficult for the general public to understand in depth, "they understand how climate change negatively impacts their quality of life and well-being,” says Quinn. “So, studying co-benefits is a unique opportunity to engage and enroll people in a climate policymaking process broadly." Exploring the impact of a clean energy transition on health, fairness, time use, and social connections, Kimbrough and Quinn have drawn on established methods of democratic deliberation to engage participants in evaluating climate policies. 

Identifying co-benefits in Philadelphia

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For the past two years, with the support of EII, Kimbrough, Quinn, and a team of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students have developed a protocol to uncover the connections between climate transition policies and co-benefits at municipal level.

Identifying co-benefits can be elusive, so "we are capturing people’s perception of co-benefits, no matter how subtle," explains Kimbrough. 

Taking urban trees as an example, "a cost-benefit assessment of urban forestry that focused on criteria like carbon emissions and temperature relief due to the urban heat island effect might conclude that the more trees, the better,” says Kimbrough.” However, there are serious concerns about trees being associated with gentrification and maintenance costs, especially in underserved neighborhoods. As a response, a tree planting policy needs to consider working in conjunction with other policies so that developing the urban forest is a solution that mitigates climate risks and benefits the local community." 

Tree planting is just one of 21 active municipal policies evaluated using the co-benefits protocol developed by the research community team. Penn students and participants in neighborhood-based sessions played a key role in testing, developing, and improving the protocol. To gain insights from a broad swath of society, particularly from historically underrepresented groups, the research community leaders also partnered with Overbrook Environmental Education Center (OEEC) in West Philadelphia and the Norris Square Neighborhood Project (NSNP) in North Philadelphia. These partnerships address the community’s needs and facilitate democratic deliberation sessions. 

The result was dozens of in-depth interviews and more than 1,500 online surveys of Philadelphia residents, all of which allowed the team to identify a list of nine recurring categories of co-benefits, such as health, convenience, and accessibility, that inform climate-related decisions aligned with public needs. 

To test how considering co-benefits affects climate policies, participants in the deliberation sessions were given background information on each policy to reflect on and were asked to score the relevance of the co-benefits categories on a scale from 0 (or no influence) to 5 (or great influence). Next, they would discuss their choice and put the choice to a vote. 

When evaluating a policy to ban gasoline-powered leaf blowers, for instance, the deliberation participants’ discussion highlighted advantages related to reductions in noise and air pollution, both criteria that scored high on the health co-benefits category. Consequently, coalitions advocating for the ban prioritized the well-being of residents over climate change concerns. “When enough co-benefits are identified, you can often overcome the cost [of a climate policy], and justify it based on the co-benefits rather than the primary climate benefits,” explains Kimbrough.  

Pursuing the climate transition requires public support. It’s not always clear to all, however, that “green living is better living,” says Kimbrough. Addressing climate challenges effectively requires understanding the complexity of how people make decisions about their well-being. For this reason, effective climate policies require not only a robust scientific foundation, but also “community input, learning about the neighbors’ quality of life issues, and understanding how they will play out before implementation,” says Quinn. In a time where public support for climate action is needed more than ever, evaluating co-benefits is a powerful alternative to strengthening the climate policymaking process, revealing how measures aimed at reducing emissions can simultaneously address climate change and broadly enhance quality of life.

As Kimbrough and Quinn strive to meet the goals of the research community, their next steps include planning a deliberation session in the FDR Park neighborhood, where discussions about expanding green spaces have sparked debate. They aim to continue supporting Philadelphia communities as they face the pressures of climate change. “When it comes to climate change, public deliberation is a process for discovering, assessing, and designing policies that can garner a sustainable level of public support,” emphasizes Kimbrough.