Wind turbines at West Somerton, Norfolk. The OECD reports a surge in patents for clean-energy technologies. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Green bonds could raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year to spur a shift to cleaner economic growth, if governments set strong environmental goals, the OECD said on Wednesday.

In a review of efforts promoting sustainable growth, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development urged more innovation to favour investment in clean energy such as wind and solar power, and a drive to place more value on many issues, from public health to clean water.

"There is scope for scaled-up issuances of green bonds [in the hundreds of billions per year]," the OECD said.

The 34-nation group said the market size of all green bond issuances to date was about $11bn (£6.7bn), "a drop in the ocean" equating to about 0.012% of the capital held in global bond markets estimated at $91 trillion.

But a condition for a more liquid market for green bonds was "transparent policies based on long-term, comprehensive and ambitious political commitments", it said.

Last year, governments agreed, at UN talks in Mexico, to the goal of limiting the rise in global average temperatures to below 2C degrees above the temperatures of pre-industrial times. The aim would be to try to avoid more devastating droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

But the UN says promised cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, stoking global warming, are too small to keep below the 2C degree ceiling.

The OECD report said there were some signs of progress towards a greening of the world economy, such as the surge in patents for clean-energy technologies. "Green technology development is accelerating in some areas," it said.

The report pointed to a 24% rise in the number of patented inventions for renewable energies from 1999-2008, as well the 20% gain in patents for electric and hybrid vehicles, and 11% rise for energy efficiency in buildings and lighting. That compared with a 6% overall increase in patents in the period, it said.

Japan, the US and Germany were leading patent applications in clean technologies.

"Innovation will play a key role," the report said of the need for a shift to greener growth in coming years.

The report added said the world needed to widen economics beyond the conventional yardstick of GDP to include non-market values such as clean air and water, health and education, and diversity of animal and plant life.

The costs of fighting climate change could be halved on average if the world placed a monetary value on longer human life-spans arising from a move away from high-polluting fossil fuels.

The US would benefit most, according to the estimates. Gains in life expectancy through reduced air and water pollution "would overcome the monetary cost of climate change mitigation by a significant amount".

The OECD said of the shift to green growth: "The scale of adjustment should not be overstated. Significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved with only limited effects on the pace of employment growth."

The organisation pointed to estimates suggesting it would cost $46tn to adapt to, and combat, climate change, up to 2050 – amounting to about $1tn a year.