Exploring the economic case for climate action in cities

The analysis of five cities indicates a strong economic case for investing in cost-effective low-carbon measures, which could reduce urban emissions by 15–24% over 10 years with an average payback period of approximately 2 years. While these investments offer significant savings relative to city GDP, the authors warn that population and economic growth in rapidly growing cities could offset these carbon savings in as little as 7 years.

• Investing in cost-effective low-carbon measures in both developed and developing cities can lead to significant emission reductions of 15–24% compared to business-as-usual trends over a 10-year period.
• The economic returns on low-carbon investments are high, with an average payback period of about 2 years at commercial rates. An average investment of 3.2 billion USD per city (representing 0.4–0.9% of annual city GDP) could yield energy bill savings between 1.7% and 9.5% of annual city-scale GDP.
• Global replication of these urban investments could potentially reduce global energy-related GHG emissions by 10–18% by 2025, although in rapidly growing cities, these gains could be negated by population and economic growth within 7 years.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2015). Exploring the economic case for climate action in cities. https://www.sei.org/publications/exploring-the-economic-case-for-climate-action-in-cities/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Exploring the economic case for climate action in cities. 2015. https://www.sei.org/publications/exploring-the-economic-case-for-climate-action-in-cities/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Exploring the economic case for climate action in cities |date=8 September 2015 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/exploring-the-economic-case-for-climate-action-in-cities/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2015exploring, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Exploring the economic case for climate action in cities}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2015}, month = sep, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/exploring-the-economic-case-for-climate-action-in-cities/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }