Dubai: Sixty three countries have pledged to cut cooling-related emissions at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai. The Global Cooling Pledge marks the world’s first collective focus on climate-warming emissions from cooling, which includes refrigeration for food and medicine and air conditioning.
It commits countries to reduce by 2050 their cooling-related emissions by at least 68% compared to 2022 levels, along with a suite of other targets, including establishing minimum energy performance standards by 2030.
“We want to lay out a pathway to reduce cooling-related emissions across all sectors but increase access to sustainable cooling,” US climate envoy John Kerry told Cop28.
Much of the emphasis is on air conditioning rather than transport or food storage.
Installed capacity of air cooling systems is set to triple by mid-century, driven by climbing temperatures, growing populations and rising incomes. The increase in air conditioning is expected to result in between 4.4 billion and 6.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, according to a report by a United Nations Environment Programme coalition, which also developed the pledge alongside the Cop28 UAE presidency.
The United States has supported the cooling pledge, which suggests there could be a process to construct more regulations or incentives for the industry in the United States but India, which is likely to see the greatest growth in demand for cooling in the coming decades, has not joined the pledge.
Progress on meeting the aims of the cooling pledge will be tracked on an annual basis until 2030, with check-ins at the yearly UN climate summits.
