On the second day of the 48th Meeting of the Open-ended Working Group of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, the UNEP Cool Coalition, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), the Cool Up programme and GIZ Proklima convened a side event on Kigali at 10: From Refrigerant Transition to Sustainable Cooling Delivery, bringing together policymakers and technical experts to assess what the first decade of the Kigali Amendment has delivered and what must change before the 2029 reduction step.

In 2024, Article 5 Group 1 parties froze hydrofluorocarbon consumption and face their first 10 per cent reduction step in 2029, while Group 2 parties are expected to freeze consumption in 2028. The next three years will test whether Kigali Implementation Plans are becoming functioning delivery systems and whether the wider climate benefits of the phase-down are captured through efficiency, demand reduction and sustainable cooling.

Opening the session, Amr Seleem, Country Engagement and Climate Policy Lead at the UNEP Cool Coalition, set out the practical implementation challenge. “Ten years ago, the Kigali Amendment set the world on a path to phase down HFCs. Today’s conversation asks what that decade has actually delivered, and what the next one demands.” For many low-volume-consuming countries, he argued, the decisive levers are the control of imported equipment and refrigerants, technician training, servicing practices, standards, labelling and enforcement. Efficiency requirements, refrigerant global warming potential limits, procurement rules and not-in-kind options determine whether Kigali compliance also avoids high electricity demand and unnecessary cooling emissions. 

Delivering the keynote, Felix Heydel, Project Manager at Öko-Recherche, presented Kigali implementation as a set of connected components that need to progress together. “The next phase of Kigali implementation is not a single refrigerant transition, but the alignment of phase-down schedules with efficient technologies, passive cooling, standards, supply chains and skills,” he noted. Heydel drew on Cool Up modelling, which treats passive and low-energy cooling as a distinct mitigation pathway, incorporating stronger building-code enforcement, public-building retrofits and Minimum Energy Performance Standards. Funded by Germany’s International Climate Initiative, Cool Up operates in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye and runs until January 2027.

Compliance is no longer the whole agenda

Introducing the panel, moderator Kerstin Kress, Communications Specialist at GIZ Proklima, framed the session around the distance between compliance planning and delivery on the ground.

Denise San Valentin, CCAC Programme Management Officer, traced how Kigali has broadened the focus of Montreal Protocol implementation. Compliance remains central, but countries are increasingly examining the equipment entering their markets alongside refrigerant imports in order to understand product quality, future demand and the technologies being locked in. “The Montreal Protocol is not just an ozone treaty anymore. It is also a climate treaty,” she remarked. She also positioned lifecycle refrigerant management within implementation rather than outside it. Recovering and reusing refrigerants, extending the working life of existing stocks and reducing demand for virgin supply can support compliance while lowering environmental impacts. 

Island economies expose the sectoral reality

For Small Island Developing States (SIDS), refrigerant schedules intersect directly with electricity systems, food security and economic survival.

Leslie Smith, Director at Grenada’s Ministry of Climate Resilience, the Environment and Renewable Energy, reported that cooling accounts for more than 64 per cent of the country’s electricity consumption and more than half of energy use in the hotel and tourism sector. Grenada began converting to natural refrigerants in 2005, before equipment was available at scale. Early implementation, therefore, depended on in-country conversion, stronger policy and legislation, technician capacity and sustained work with equipment owners. The country is now piloting R290 in supermarket refrigeration, where continued reliance on R404A equipment could quickly erode the national consumption baseline. “It is a journey in progress. We welcome the ten years, but the fight for sustainable cooling is far from over,” stated Smith.

The Maldives illustrated how refrigerant transition is carried through productive sectors. Miruza Mohamed, Deputy Director General at the Ministry of Climate Change, Environment and Energy, described a country of roughly 1,900 islands, including around 200 supporting resorts, where fishermen may spend days at sea, making reliable cold storage essential to food security, livelihoods and export quality. Tourism adds a parallel challenge because resort islands operate independent electricity systems and cooling demand is expected to expand substantially. The implication is that failure in cooling infrastructure in the Maldives can disrupt fisheries, tourism, essential services and national resilience. “For island economies, refrigerant transition succeeds only when the technology can survive local conditions, be repaired locally and remain affordable across fisheries, tourism and essential services,” noted Mohamed.

Not-in-kind options need an implementation pathway

Dr Alaa Olama, Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Specialist from Egypt, made the technical case for reducing refrigerant demand rather than relying only on substitution. He presented liquid-desiccant indirect cooling, which separates moisture removal from sensible cooling and can substantially reduce the work required from the cooling system. Egypt is also testing ultra-efficient direct-indirect evaporative cooling through nine demonstration projects, developing an evaporative indirect cooling code, converting five refrigeration systems to ammonia, and preparing a monoblock system under its Kigali Implementation Plan. Drawing on lifecycle-cost analysis of air-conditioning technologies in Saudi Arabia, he compared conventional split systems with adsorption, geothermal, district and seawater cooling options. “Kigali implementation should reduce refrigerant demand, not only change the refrigerant. District cooling, evaporative systems and other not-in-kind technologies can do that, provided they are recognised, demonstrated and financed at scale,” argued Olama.

The next phase must connect institutions

The Q&A discussion repeatedly returned to institutional fragmentation. Cooling drives electricity demand, particularly in SIDS, yet ozone, energy, climate and adaptation processes are still often managed separately. Smith argued that cooling must gain a stronger place in climate negotiations because it combines high electricity demand, refrigerants with high global warming potential, and rapidly growing access needs. San Valentin added that sustainable cooling should be recognised not only as mitigation, but also within adaptation finance. Delegates from Ghana described efforts through the African Group of Negotiators to build understanding among climate negotiators, while a participant from Kenya raised the difficulty of certifying informal technicians alongside formally trained practitioners. Heydel proposed making certification a legal condition of practice, supported by public registries and updated curricula that reflect the safe handling of natural refrigerants.

Closing the session, Guntram Glasbrenner, Programme Manager at GIZ Proklima, summarised the shift now required: “Delivery begins when plans become concrete measures, technologies become affordable and reliable, and countries have the standards, skills and finance to implement them at scale.” Nationally Determined Contributions and National Cooling Action Plans must be translated into strategies, and strategies into concrete implementation steps. Very-low-global-warming-potential technologies are already available. Glasbrenner also stressed that very-low-global-warming-potential technologies are already available, but scaling their deployment will require additional financing, stronger supply chains and implementation capacity, and greater consideration of costs and savings over the full lifetime of equipment.

The discussion will continue at the Global Cooling Pledge Assembly in Singapore, where countries and partners will examine how these priorities can be carried into national delivery, investment pipelines and the next phase of international cooperation.