Global Efficiency Program: ‘Urgent’ Need for Climate-Friendly Cooling

By Ilana Koegelenberg, Dec 11, 2019, 14:14 2 minute reading

K-CEP’s new report estimates the growth of cooling demand and calls for action to address it.

The Cooling Imperative is now available for download.

The Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP), a philanthropic collaborative focused on developing countries, has commissioned a new report that quantifies the need to transition to more efficient, climate-friendly cooling, and maps out what this transition could look like.

The report, “The Cooling Imperative: Forecasting the size and source of future cooling demand,” was addressed in a webinar on December 9 and officially went live today (December 11). It is available for download here.

The report was written by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) – the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, sister company to The Economist – which also hosted the webinar.

The three core goals of the report are to help estimate and forecast cooling demand; identify where demand for cooling is coming from; and bring findings to a non-expert audience. According to the report, urgent steps must be taken by businesses and policymakers to embrace efficient, climate-friendly cooling. 

“In our new report, we estimate that 4.8 [billion] new units of cooling equipment will be sold globally between 2019-2030,” said K-CEP in its webinar invite. “These cooling technologies, and broader cooling use, are a substantial and growing contributor to climate change. Our report highlights the urgent steps that must be taken to avoid the need for cooling, shift to cooling with lower emissions, improve cooling efficiency and protect those most vulnerable to a lack of cooling.”

During the webinar, Conor Griffin, Regional Director, EMEA, EIU highlighted main drivers for growth in cooling, addressing issues such as urbanization, income/GDP growth, electrification and climate change. “Cooling is not a new challenge, it is a very large and substantial industry and it will grow more,” said Griffin. “The world must close the cooling gap if countries are to meet SDGs; however, cooling must become much more climate-friendly.”

The report looked at six main regions: China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. The main focus is on unit sales and financial value, looking at the different dynamics in the eight subsectors that the report focuses on, including:

  • Residential, commercial, and industrial AC;
  • Residential, commercial, and industrial refrigeration;
  • Mobile AC; and 
  • Transport refrigeration.

The report also briefly considers the role of refrigerants in the shift towards more efficient HVAC&R systems and away from high-GWP systems. 

Download the report

By Ilana Koegelenberg (@Ilana_Ed)

Dec 11, 2019, 14:14




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