Danny Chan
The cooling sector has to take a more holistic view of sustainable cooling that extends beyond the Kigali targets, according to experts speaking at a special event held alongside the latest Meeting of the Parties of the Montreal Protocol.
The Economic Affairs Officer with the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Ksenia Petrichenko, says a better approach would encompass issues such as financial support, government policy and other development issues in countries all over the world.
The UN official has warned that the commitments outlined within the Kigali Amendment to curb greenhouse gas emissions would not be sufficient to realise sustainable cooling.
“The institutional responsibility in any given country is usually very scattered – there is not one single agency that is responsible for all aspects of cooling,” says Petrichenko.
“So it really requires the engagement of diverse stakeholders and aligning different interests and agendas.”
Focusing on the importance of National Cooling Action Plans, the special event was hosted by a range of organisations, including the UN Environment Programme and the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP). The webinar was part of a series of programs to coincide with the 32nd Meeting of the Parties of the Montreal Protocol.
Energy Efficiency and Cooling Lead for the Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Brian Dean, says that a key consideration for each plan is to ensure there is sufficient cooling capacity in a country to meet domestic needs as well as the demands of healthcare, schools and offices to ensure the wellbeing of the buildings’ occupants.
“We have over a billion people that are at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling and another two billion people that are at medium risk,” says Dean.
In line with global net-zero carbon ambitions, the national cooling plans have been developed to set out a national roadmap for the policy, technology and finance options required to meet the core cooling needs of the country.
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