WASHINGTON — New carbon emissions standards that were proposed last year for coal-fired power plants in the United States would substantially improve human health, according to a new study, and prevent more than 3,000 premature deaths per year.
The study, led by researchers at Syracuse and Harvard Universities, used modeling to predict the effect on human health of changes to national carbon standards for power plants. The researchers calculated three different scenarios using data from the Census Bureau and detailed maps of the more than 2,400 fossil-fuel-fired power plants across the country.
The scenario with the biggest health benefit was the one that most closely resembled the changes that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in a rule in June. Under that plan, reductions in carbon emissions for the plants would be set by states, and would include improvements to energy efficiency of, for example, air-conditioners, refrigerators and power grids.
Carbon emissions trap heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to a warming planet. Coal-fired power plants also produce a number of other pollutants, such as soot and ozone, which are directly linked to diseases like asthma and lung disease.
Researchers calculated that the changes in the E.P.A. rule could prevent 3,500 premature deaths a year, and more than 1,000 heart attacks and hospitalizations from air-pollution-related illness. More energy efficiency reduces the emission not only of carbon, but also of other pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, the pollutants that create soot and smog, which would have the biggest effect on health, the researchers said.
The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The largest declines in pollution — and consequent benefits to health — would happen in the states around the Ohio River Valley, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, which have some of the highest levels of emissions, researchers said.
Charles T. Driscoll, a professor of environmental systems engineering at Syracuse University who was the lead author of the paper, said research began about a year before the E.P.A. proposed the carbon reduction plan. It was a coincidence that one of the researchers’ scenarios so closely resembled the federal proposal.
“The idea is to inform the federal and state governments that your state and federal policy matters,” he said. “Air quality is something everybody relates to and everyone experiences.”
The study comes as President Obama plans to unveil by midsummer a set of finalized climate change rules to curb planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the United States, a move that he hopes will stand as a cornerstone of his environmental legacy.
The climate rules, as proposed in draft form last year by the E.P.A., would cut carbon emissions from power plants 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
The rules will chiefly target coal-fired power plants, the nation’s largest source of carbon emissions. They would require every state to submit a plan to shift their energy systems from heavily carbon polluting sources of power, such as coal plants, to cleaner power sources.
If enacted as devised, the rules could eventually close hundreds of coal plants and freeze construction of new coal plants for the foreseeable future, while encouraging the construction of new electricity generation from natural gas, wind, solar and other low-carbon energy sources.
In making the case for the climate change rule, the Obama administration has sought to highlight its indirect public health benefits, even though the chief objective of the measure is to reduce global warming.
Mr. Obama’s political advisers have made the bet that a policy presented as a move to reduce childhood asthma and other diseases will gain more public traction than a complex new energy policy designed to reduce global warming in the long term.
In June, Mr. Obama formally announced the proposed rules on a phone call with the American Lung Association, and the advocacy group focused on touting the rule’s indirect health benefits. And ahead of unveiling the finalized rules this summer, the administration has held a series of events designed to highlight the health impacts of cutting coal power.
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