17 July 2023

14th Clean Energy Ministerial and 8th Mission Innovation meeting (CEM14/MI-8) High-level dialogue – Sustainable Cooling

Date: Friday, 21 July 2023                                  Time: 14:30-15:45 (IST)                         Event Language: English

Format: In-person                                                Location: Goa, India

Organized by: CEM14/MI-8, UNEP-Cool Coalition

Description: 

Almost 2.5 billion people do not have access to climate-friendly cooling solutions and over 1 billion people are at high risk from extreme heat due to a lack of cooling access – the vast majority living in in Africa and Asia. Expanding cooling will protect the most vulnerable communities from extreme heat, keep food fresh and vaccines safe, employees productive and digital economies viable. Yet, we need to prevent cooling-related greenhouse gas emissions from adding fuel to the climate fire.

In 2020, cooling systems were responsible for around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This number is expected to rise to 16% by 2050 if no action is taken to reduce emissions. Estimates suggest that “climate-friendly cooling” could help avoid more than 460 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

With proper planning and policy implementation, sustainable cooling can provide a wide range of benefits –

• Environmental preservation: Sustainable cooling promotes the use of natural refrigerants, renewable energy sources, and energy-efficient cooling technologies, minimizing the impact on the environment.
• Energy conservation: The new system design for the sustainable cooling systems consumes less energy, which reduces the reliance on fossil fuels, lowers energy demand and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that helps in achieving energy security.
• Cost-effectiveness: These solutions are cost-effective in the long run, as they require less maintenance, have a longer life expectancy, and reduce energy bills.
• Resilience: These solutions and policies for sustainable cooling offer more reliable and resilient cooling systems, as renewable energy and natural refrigerants are not subject to market volatility or supply-chain disruptions, unlike fossil fuels.
• Social equity: Eventually, sustainable cooling leads to solutions and technologies that are accessible and affordable to people in low-income communities who are more vulnerable to heatwaves, providing them with comfortable and healthy living conditions.

To facilitate access to sustainable cooling solutions, there is an urgent need for international collaboration to foster public-private deployment for solutions like: district cooling, cold chains, passive cooling, super-efficient cooling appliances, and other measures.

Policymakers can incentivize businesses to create energy-efficient cooling products and ensure that sustainable cooling is considered during planning and designing sectors like energy, urban and cities, transport, agricultural, and health services.

CEM initiatives such as the Super-Efficient Equipment and Deployment (SEAD) Initiative and the MI’s Innovation Challenge on Affordable Heating and Cooling on Buildings have focused on this important topic and UNEP-led Cool Coalition have also accelerated international on sustainable cooling.

This session will highlight recent international efforts from the public, private, and non-profit sectors to accelerate political commitments and cross-border implementation to address the common cooling challenges. It will also provide an opportunity to further develop and strengthen the commitments for the global cooling community.