Exploring international commitments to refrigerant transition, climate responsibility, and practical implementation.

Two years ago at COP28 in Dubai, the Global Cooling Pledge was introduced to encourage more rapid progress in addressing climate change. This followed the Special Report from the United Nations in 2023, highlighting that geopolitical pressures were hampering progress toward the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and more cooperation was required between governments, businesses and individuals to overcome those obstacles.

Last November, the Cooling Coalition published its first update on the Global Cooling Pledge and hopes to see further progress in next month’s second annual report at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. The pledge has three main aims and consists of 16 commitments to support the aims.

The aims are to reduce cooling-related emissions by 68% (relative to 2022 levels), to increase access to sustainable cooling and to increase the efficiency of new air conditioners by 50%. The first aim has a long time horizon of 2050, but the sustainable cooling and efficiency improvement focus is on 2030, which is not far off. The commitments include a pledge to work together, to ratify the Kigali Amendment and to support the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund as well as calling on other countries and organizations (including private sector companies and financial institutions) to support the objectives of the Pledge.

At a national level, the commitments focus on development of codes and regulations, including a cooling action plan, model building energy codes and minimum energy performance standards. The pledge also includes the development of public procurement policies for low-GWP and high efficiency cooling technologies and innovative solutions, and the ongoing life cycle management of fluorocarbons through national regulations.

It is good, at last, to see cooling and the cold chain recognized as significant factors in these considerations, as for too long now the refrigeration world seems to have been overlooked. However, living in the spotlight is not always comfortable and demonstrable action leading to tangible results will be required of us. What, for example, does “increase efficiency by 50%” mean? I take it that a minimum requirement for a SEER of 13.0 would be transposed to a SEER of 19.5—an increase of 50%. However, it might mean that the energy use is to be reduced by 50%, which would require a SEER rating of 26.0 to achieve that result. Both of these outcomes are already possible, at a cost, but in the context of rising demand for air conditioning due to population growth, increasing urbanization and rising ambient temperatures I doubt whether either of them will be sufficient to reduce global cooling-related emissions by 68%. This is not a valid reason to ignore the pledge and do nothing. Rather, it should be a call to recognize that the objectives of the pledge should be viewed as “entry level” rather than “aspirational.”

On balance I am glad that these issues are attracting public attention because the alternative is a sure route to a less attractive future. As Lord Henry Wotton said to Dorian Gray, “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”