Climate opportunity report: more jobs, better health, liveable cities

The Climate Opportunity report looks at the wider
impacts of climate change, up to 2030, by analysing
how efforts to promote energy efficiency retrofits in
residential buildings, enhanced bus networks, and
district-scale renewable energy reduce emissions
as well as affect health and prosperity in selected
global regions. These measures, impacts and regions
were selected based on insights from recent research
that highlights the most relevant, high impact and
achievable climate actions (ARUP & C40 Cities 2016;
McKinsey & C40 2017). These actions are crucial to the
delivery of the Paris Agreement. 2030 was identified
as a reasonable timeframe for impacts to be captured,
though immediate action from incumbent Mayors is
still required in order to deliver the rate of necessary
change to achieve these impacts in 2030.
The report’s analysis focuses on two scenarios. First, a
reference scenario that projects urban developments
based on current trends and, second, an enhanced
action scenario that assumes that each climate
action is implemented at a level consistent with the
requirements of the Paris Agreement.
The Climate Opportunity report has found positive
impacts for various regions and countries in different
stages of economic development. The report also
shows that climate action can have proportionally
greater benefits for lower income groups in the cities of
developing countries, where populations often have the
most to gain from the introduction of new technologies
and practices.
Table 1 demonstrates the effects of taking urban
climate action, in line with the enhanced action
scenario. Climate action can be action for health and
prosperity, with hundreds of thousands of prevented
deaths, millions of jobs created, and billions generated
in household savings.