Global Economic Assessment of Integrated Climate and Clean Air Action

Published

2026

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Hidden assets: The economic and health case for climate and clean air action

Climate change and air pollution are inextricably linked. They share many of the same drivers and sources, above all fossil-fuel combustion, along with certain agricultural practices and industrial processes. Several pollutants, methane and black carbon among them, both warm the climate and degrade air quality, and their impacts compound one another, harming human health, ecosystems and economic activity.

This Assessment provides the most complete picture to date of the benefits and costs of integrated climate and clean air action, complemented by an empirically grounded analysis of how these benefits can be delivered quickly enough to avoid deaths and disease and improve the lives of the world's most vulnerable people.

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Communications Assets (Trello Board)

Hidden assets in numbers

15:1

$15 in benefits for every $1 invested

144 m

Premature deaths could be prevented by 2050

$1.5T

Benefits lost for every year of delay

60%

Less methane by 2050

~70%

Less key air pollution by 2050

0.34°C

Warming avoided already by 2050

1.4°C

Warming avoided by 2100

$10T

Potential savings by 2040 from faster implementation

60–70%

Annual air-pollution health burden that could be avoided

50%

Global CO₂ emissions cut by around half by 2050

10 YEARS

Market benefits exceed implementation costs within a decade

3–26×

Benefits outweigh costs in every region analysed

The 25 proven solutions

This Assessment evaluates a package of 25 proven solutions based on existing technologies and practices spanning energy and fossil fuel systems, industry, transport, agriculture and food systems, residential cooking and heating, and waste management.

The 25 solutions are designed to be implemented as a package. The full economic and health benefits identified in this Assessment are only realized when all 25 solutions are pursued simultaneously.

However, the solutions delivering the largest benefits in any given region and time-period differ substantially, reflecting differences in current pollution levels, energy systems, demographics and the extent of existing policies. Every region benefits, and no solution is wasted.

Check out the 25 Solutions

The 25 solutions implemented in the ‘integrated action scenario’. This includes the two groupings (i) 4 long-term climate solutions and (ii) 21 clean air and near-term climate solutions. For each measure, the primary mitigation objective is indicated, as well as the mitigation co-benefit.

Enabling conditions are as important as technology choices

Access to finance, institutional capacity, governance and coordination challenges explain why the same policies deliver different outcomes across contexts. They also show that barriers to implementation are not primarily technical. Siloed decision-making, limited enforcement capacity, inadequate financing and weak cross-ministerial coordination are the constraints that are cited most frequently to explain why proven solutions are not adopted at the speed or scale predicted in models and fail to achieve their technical potential.

Addressing these barriers through a suite of broader cross-cutting institutional enablers and narrower sector-specific reforms can bring full implementation forward by up to a decade. The 25 solutions span six sectors, each governed by different ministries, regulatory frameworks and financing channels. So investment in a well-designed enabling environment is essential. This Assessment shows, for the first time, what strengthening institutional coordination and equipping regulators to enforce policy is actually worth.

16 enablers that break the four implementation barriers to accelerate action.

Call to action

This Assessment makes a more comprehensive economic case for integrated action on climate and clean air than any previous global analysis. Capturing these returns, at speed and scale, requires deliberate choices across five areas.

Make integrated climate and clean air policy a core economic strategy.
Invest early and consistently in enabling conditions, especially institutional linkages and capacity building.
Target rapid wins to meet near-term commitments, as part of an overarching strategy to implement the package of 25 solutions.
Align international cooperation and financing with the realities of implementation and finance needs on the ground.
Fund the data and monitoring, evaluation and review infrastructure that decisions depend on.

Integrated action on climate and clean air is one of the rare policy agendas that delivers rapid domestic returns, reduces fiscal risk, improves equity outcomes and strengthens long-term growth and prosperity. The 25 solutions quantify the economic case for rapid action with precision. What is required now is implementation at a speed and scale to match.