Chilling Prospects 2025 Highlights the Cooling Divide

Equitable access to sustainable cooling has become an urgent global development priority. As heatwaves intensify and energy inequality persists, cooling is increasingly the difference between safety and vulnerability, between development gains and humanitarian setbacks. On 24 July 2025, Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) launched the seventh edition of the Chilling Prospects report, an annual analysis offering a comprehensive overview of who remains at risk and what solutions are emerging to address the global cooling gap. The launch event took place under the umbrella of the UNEP Cool Coalition’s Cool Talks webinar series, which spotlights diverse facets of sustainable cooling.

Moderator Rosa Garcia, Energy Efficiency and Cooling Officer at SEforALL, opened the session referencing striking findings from the 2025 Chilling Prospects report, which point to just over one billion people at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling, 309 million of whom are among the rural poor and 695 million among the urban poor.

Ben Hartley, SEforALL Programme Manager for Cooling, presented these findings and their implications, warning that under current trends, the number of high-risk individuals could rise to 1.05 billion by 2030. “Cooling underpins the ability of millions to escape poverty, to keep classrooms cool, vaccines stable, food nutritious, and economies productive,” he emphasized. Hartley outlined diverging global trends, pointing to China’s rapid progress in shifting populations toward lower risk categories, while noting increased vulnerability in Sub-Saharan African nations such as Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Sudan, primarily due to persistent energy access challenges and rapid urbanisation.

Echoing the call for systemic responses, Minni Sastry, Extreme Heat and Sustainable Cooling Advisor at the UNEP Cool Coalition, stressed the importance of integrating cooling strategies into long-term urban planning. India, she explained, is experiencing increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves, with certain regions surpassing 50°C. In response, UNEP collaborated with India’s National Disaster Management Authority to evolve heat action plans from short-term emergency measures to comprehensive frameworks that now include urban heat island mapping, along with long term strategies for passive cooling, including nature-based solutions. “The success of cooling action plans depends on their integration with master planning processes, zoning policies, and local infrastructure upgrades,” Sastry explained, referencing pilot initiatives in New Delhi’s bus terminals and Chennai’s suggested revisions for city master plan, where heat-mitigation measures are being embedded into urban frameworks.

Keeping the discussion grounded in local realities, Felix Akello, Chief Heat Officer and Energy Planning Lead for the County Government of Kisumu, Kenya, shared his experience of translating global pledges into county-level implementation. Kisumu is one of eight Kenyan counties to have submitted targets under the Global Cooling Pledge, which now includes over 70 countries and 80 non-state actors committed to slashing cooling-related emissions by 68% by 2050 while also expanding equitable access. Akello is working to operationalize Kisumu’s heat action plan by linking it to renewable energy adoption, appliance efficiency standards, and the development of agricultural cold chains, among other demand and supply dynamics within the county. “Kisumu has aligned its efforts with a county-wide 100% renewable energy roadmap running to 2050, with the aim to embed sustainable cooling into public investment decisions,” he stated.

Shifting to the question of finance, Rusmir Musić, Global Cooling Lead and Climate Finance Expert at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), addressed the challenge of building viable business cases in an underdeveloped investment landscape. He noted that cooling is not a standalone sector, but it’s embedded in housing, food systems, and health infrastructure, which is both a barrier and an opportunity. Musić went on to emphasise that bridging the finance gap requires translating the need for cooling into sector-specific investment strategies that resonate with private actors. “Unless we can make this about return on investment, showing that a developer, a logistics company, or a hospital system benefits financially, we won’t see the scale of finance that’s needed.” Musić highlighted IFC’s green housing work in India, where $340 million has already been deployed, and TechEmerge pilots demonstrating energy savings in clean-powered cold chains. He concluded by noting that the real breakthrough will come when communities are able to quantify the operational savings and make the invisible visible.

Zonibel Woods, Senior Social Development Specialist at the Asian Development Bank, called on development leaders to take gender equality into account when tackling rising heat and increasing access to cooling, warning that climate solutions must work for everyone if they are to succeed. Women in informal work, agriculture, and caregiving roles are disproportionately affected by extreme heat, yet often overlooked in mainstream planning. Woods called for stronger data collection, intersectional analysis, and the adaptation of indigenous knowledge systems. “Some of the most effective strategies are low-cost, culturally rooted solutions that communities have used for generations,” she said. She also underscored the importance of Chief Heat Officers in bringing fragmented city departments into coordinated cross-sectoral responses.

From a policy and technology standpoint, Guntram Glasbrenner, Programme Manager at GIZ Proklima, warned of the long-term risks of locking in inefficient, high-emissions cooling infrastructure. “We cannot afford another generation of cooling equipment with high global warming potential. R-32 is not the future,” he argued. Glasbrenner stressed the need to leapfrog to energy-efficient appliances using natural refrigerants, such as hydrocarbons, that already command over a third of the market. However, policy gaps remain. Regulatory enforcement, and cross-sector cooperation must all improve to accelerate the uptake of climate-friendly technologies. When working with hydrocarbons, continuous training of technicians is key. On this matter, Glasbrenner pointed to the GIZ Proklima Cool Trainings, where technicians and political decision makers are being trained on the safe handling of natural refrigerants.

The Q&A session that followed reflected deep interest in the practical aspects of implementation. Participants raised questions about demand-side management strategies for ice machines in hospitality, how to disaggregate comfort cooling from cold chains, and the feasibility of integrating passive and active systems in underserved communities. Hartley responded that while data segmentation is possible, it would require a much higher level of granularity than is currently available. Sastry highlighted India’s current efforts to combine heat and cooling data into unified planning tools. Both Musić and Glasbrenner reinforced the importance of demonstrating financial returns through localized case studies as a way to convince both policymakers and investors.

In her closing reflections, Rosa Garcia emphasized the need to break down silos and build coherence across cooling, climate, and development strategies. “We’ve made progress in policy and technology,” she observed, “but the real test is whether we’re designing for the realities of the most vulnerable.”

Find out more about the Chilling Prospects 2025 launch event, download the presentation, and watch the recording here.