Connecting refrigeration practice with climate science, mitigation pathways, and adaptation challenges.

By the time you are reading this, the 26th conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) Kyoto Protocol, aka COP26, will be underway, either in person in Glasgow or by video conference. It seems appropriate this month to focus on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of climate action, life below water, life on land and sustainable cities and communities.

These are SDGs 13, 14, 15 and 11, for those who are still counting, and they all have direct relevance to the world of refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pumps. I can only touch very lightly on the issues at hand on a single page. I encourage you to do some homework to see how much information you can find about each topic.

Climate action is an interesting case in point. I sometimes wonder whether the amount of confusion, misdirection and misinformation that seem to surround us on this topic would have been possible before the internet. It is obvious that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been increasingly blunt in their pronouncements on this. In the most recent IPCC report (the sixth, for those who are still counting) they say, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” This is not a throwaway line tucked into the dark recesses of the report. It is the title of chapter A1—the first chapter of the first section on page one.

In IPCC 5 (2014) the statement was, “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” This was seen as significantly stronger language than that of the fourth assessment of 2005, which reported “very high confidence” (i.e. greater than 90%) that “the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.” I worry that the 7th IPCC report when it comes will only be able to quote Oliver Hardy: “Now look what you’ve gone and done.”

Life on land is clearly influenced by refrigeration and air-conditioning. Life below water is a different proposition but it perhaps presents the greatest challenge in terms of climate change. There is a growing realization that the oceans are acting as a huge buffer to the human causes of climate change, absorbing up to 90% of the excess carbon dioxide in circulation. However, the buffer is finite and the limits of its capacity may be closer than we think. Ammonia has always been a threat to aquatic life if it is allowed to poison waterways but at least it tends to disperse in the vicinity of release. Environmentalists have raised concerns recently about accumulation in oceans of trifluoroacetate (TFA)—one of the breakdown products of some refrigerants. Unlike ammonia, TFA can travel hundreds of miles from the point of release and is persistent.

Sustainable cities and communities need to feature large in the next few years. Over half the population growth projected for the next thirty years will live in urban and suburban environments. That is a massive challenge to the refrigeration and air-conditioning communities. If we get it wrong and allow solutions to be developed haphazardly and unsustainably, then our chances of containing the “unequivocal” warming already observed will be slim.

Confusion, misdirection and misinformation have always been a feature of technical progress. The internet hasn’t changed that but it presents us with a stark choice. We can either allow ourselves to be misinformed and misdirected by accepting all the information around us at face value or we can challenge it and use the powerful research tool at our fingertips to challenge misinformation presented as fact.

Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!