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

United Nations Environment Programme (2026). Hidden assets: The economic and health case for climate and clean air action. Climate and Clean Air Coalition 10.59117/20.500.11822/49870.

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Abstract

Climate change and air pollution share many of the same sources, yet are almost always assessed separately. This Assessment corrects that. It evaluates 25 proven solutions across energy, industry, transport, agriculture, cooking and waste, and finds that integrated action delivers more than acting on either alone. Every dollar invested returns around 15 dollars, an internal rate of return of 60 per cent, with market returns exceeding costs within ten years. By 2050 the solutions could avoid 144 million premature deaths and hundreds of millions of cases of chronic disease. The chief obstacles are often neither technical nor economic but institutional. Investment in enabling conditions can bring full implementation forward by up to a decade, worth up to US$10 trillion in savings by 2040. Every region benefits. Benefit-cost ratios range from three in high-income regions to 26 in Southern Africa. Every year of delay forgoes more than US$1.5 trillion.

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