World Bank report calls for action to cut common pollutants such as soot, which could save millions of lives every year

Cleaner cookstoves could save a million lives every year, but costs need to decrease sharply for poor households in developing countries to be able to afford them, according to a World Bank report.

On thin ice: how cutting pollution can slow warming and save lives, published on Sunday evening, calls for action to reduce common pollutants such as soot, known as black carbon, to not only slow global warming, but prevent millions of deaths.

It warns that climate change in the cryosphere – snow-capped mountain ranges, glaciers and vast permafrost regions – could have dire human consequences from the resulting rise in sea levels, increased water stress and more extreme weather. For example, the release of large CO2 and methane stores as a result of melting permafrost could contribute up to 30% more carbon to the atmosphere by the end of the century.

"The health of people around the world will improve greatly if we reduce emissions of black carbon and methane. Limiting these emissions will be an important contributor to the fight against climate change," said Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank. "The damage from indoor cooking smoke alone is horrendous – every year, 4 million people die from exposure to the smoke. With cleaner air, cities will become more productive, food production will increase and children will be healthier."

The death toll of from cookstoves using wood, charcoal, dung and crop residues exceeds the World Health Organisation's estimate of annual deaths from HIV and Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Once lodged in the lungs, superfine particles, which include soot, cannot be coughed out, creating the conditions for disease.

Cookstove reduction measures offer by far the greatest potential benefits to human health and in slowing cryosphere warming, said the World Bank.

Improved cookstoves would have the biggest impact in the Himalayas. According to the report, more than 1 million premature deaths may be avoided annually in the region from all methane and black carbon measures combined. About 743,000 of these prevented deaths would arise from cookstoves measures. In terms of agricultural impact, less pollution could result in crop increases of staples such as rice of 15m tons annually, with almost 3m tons in additional crop yields occurring in China alone.

Cleaner cookstoves include those using liquid petroleum gas, biogas, ethanol or fans. The report notes that hundreds of public and private initiatives exist to bring cleaner stoves to women in the developing world. It also suggests that as a first step the world should focus on the four clean cooking solutions. Cost and local acceptance, however, remain major barriers, although the report cites China's clean stove initiative as an example of a successful programme to promote clean cooking.

Reductions in emissions from diesel transport and equipment, meanwhile, could result in more than 16m tons of additional yield in crops such as rice, soy and wheat, especially in south-east Asia; and also avert 340,000 premature deaths. However, gains would be eliminated by the end of this century if not accompanied by strong reductions in carbon dioxide, the report said.

"The role of such reductions is to slow the immediate rate of change, especially in the cryosphere, but cannot replace long-term effects to reduce CO2," the World Bank said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said in a report in September that if people continued to emit greenhouse gases at current rates, the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere could mean that within as little as two to three decades the world would face nearly inevitable warming of more than 2C (3.6F), resulting in rising sea levels, heatwaves, droughts and more extreme weather.

• This article was amended on 5 November 2013 to correct a temperature conversion.