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Please see EPA's Climate Change site for current information on climate change and global warming. EPA no longer updates EPA's Global Warming Site, but is maintaining this archive for historical purposes. Thank you for visiting the archive of EPA's Global Warming Site.
Potential Benefits of Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
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 Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may yield a range of additional environmental and social benefits. State and local governments are discovering that many policies and measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be justified on the basis of those added benefits alone. These measures make good economic and environmental sense even if climate change is not an issue of concern. Here are some examples of these benefits:
Economics
- Reduced energy costs to households, businesses, organizations, and governments.
- Improved compliance with air quality standards (i.e., fewer fines).
- Reduced environmental costs associated with air pollution.
- Reduced economic dependence on imported oil.
- Lower material costs and disposal fees due to recycling and source reduction.
- Lower maintenance costs of alternative technologies such as electric cars and efficient fluorescent lights, compared with conventional products.
- Increased worker productivity from efficient lighting and individual heating and cooling controls in buildings, according to some studies.
Public Health
- Reduced emissions of other air pollutants can decrease instances of respiratory diseases, such as chronic bronchitis and asthma, as well as the discomfort associated with these diseases.
- Better air quality and reduced urban smog.
- Less urban sprawl, preserving the vibrancy of downtowns and conserving valuable open space and farmland outside cities.
- More walkable cities and towns.
- Job creation through development and deployment of new transportation technologies.
Forestry
- Reduced summer cooling costs through strategic tree planting.
- Aesthetic benefits of tree planting programs in urban and rural locations.
- Promotion of sustainable forestry through initiatives for biomass energy or carbon sequestration.
- Reduced urban heat island effect.
Agriculture
- Reduced energy costs from improved energy efficiency in farm building operations and farm equipment.
- Reduced costs and improved productivity through alternative farming practices such as no-till agriculture and the strategic use of fertilizers.
- New potential source of income for farmers from the use of agricultural crops for biofuels such as methanol or biodiesel.
- Reduced energy costs for farms through processing of livestock waste to produce power.
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