COP29 Buildings and Cooling Pavilion

Sustainable Cold Chains for a Climate Resilient Future

Event description

Scaling up action on efficient, climate friendly cold chains is a key piece of the puzzle to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the Montreal Protocol. Lack of effective cold chain is estimated to directly result in losses of 475 million tonnes or 13% of total food production. At the same time, refrigeration equipment used in the food cold-chain is responsible for 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.  

Ensuring “field to fork” connectivity with sustainable cold chain solutions can help nutritiously feed 10 billion people, support the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, and reduce food loss and wastage, while avoiding direct and indirect GHG emissions. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) in 2019, which states that though cold-chain represents a small portion of the aggregated cooling demand, it is poised for significant growth by 2037 and will result in increased energy demand. Currently there are 500 pack-houses in India, the number is likely to grow to 1,25,000 by 2037 attributing to increase in energy consumption to 5.2 TWh. 

Under the framework of the Cool Coalition, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and RMI, in partnership with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark under the India-Denmark Green Strategic Partnership, are developing a programme to sustainably cool India’s cities. Drawing on best practices from around the world, the programme will deliver on-the-ground support to help cities “Beat the Heat.”

During this session, participants will be able to interact with a panel of experts from governments, private sector, international organisations on the challenges to deliver sustainable food cold chains for all. These include lack of awareness on their benefits and of robust data, insufficient consideration to the multi-dimensional character of food cold chains and a tendency to work in silos, operational and commercial limitations of sustainable refrigerant options and insufficient skilled technicians. Stakeholders will share best practices in policy, finance, and technology solutions to overcome these challenges, and will highlight relevant ongoing initiatives and programs.