Scaling up smart policies and projects to tackle climate change could lead to significant gains, including an increase in global economic output by trillions of dollars a year and saving million of lives, a new report by World Bank Group has found.

The ‘Climate-Smart Development: Adding up the benefits of actions that help build prosperity, end poverty and combat climate change’, report, released in conjunction with the ClimateWorks Foundation, showed that government policies stimulating a shift to clean transport and improved energy efficiency in factories, buildings and appliances, and energy efficiency in industry in general, could increase global gross domestic product (GDP) growth by between $1.8-trillion and $2.6-trillion a year by 2030.

“The right policy choices can deliver significant benefits to lives, jobs, crops, energy and GDP, as well as emission reductions to combat climate change,” World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said.

The aggregated outcomes of the three policy case studies in six focus regions Brazil, China, India, Mexico and the US, as well as the European Union – included the avoidance of 8.5-billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and the saving of almost 16-billion kilowatt-hours of energy, which represented a savings of nearly $800-billion, by 2030.

Further, the report found that effective policies could reduce crop damage, increasing yields by 1.3-million tons – valued at $216-million – and avert about 94 000 premature deaths from pollution-related diseases a year by 2030, with a monetised value of $429-billion.

The collective policies reviewed in the case studies also led to a reduction in the volume of greenhouse-gas emissions by the equivalent of removing two-billion cars off the road.

If fully implemented, the set of regulatory, tax and other policy actions outlined in the report could account for 30% of the total emissions reduction needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 2 °C, the report noted.

“Governments should take a close look at the evidence in this report. It reinforces the economic case for action over inaction on climate change. The report shows that climate action does not require economic sacrifice or, put differently, good economic stewardship can reap huge climate rewards,” said World Bank Group VP and special envoy for climate change Rachel Kyte.

The report also simulates a scale-up of three existing projects and a scenario to determine the potential impact over 20 years.

These included a bus rapid transit project in India, a solid waste management initiative in Brazil, the roll-out of agricultural waste management in Mexico and a scenario where clean cooking stoves were widely distributed in China.

Together, these initiatives could prevent in excess of one-million premature deaths, avoid one-million to 1.5-million tons of crop losses and create 200 000 jobs.

Further, the projects could cut CO₂ equivalent emissions by between 355-million and 520-million metric tons – the equivalent of shutting down 100 to 150 coal-fired power plants.