Cooling is critical infrastructure for tackling the impact of climate change

Governments and policy makers must recognise cooling as critical national infrastructure (CNI) if humanity is to build resilience to the impact of climate change, according to a new report.

Published today (18 July), The Hot Reality: Living in a +50°C World calls for a radical shift in policy to create more ambitious strategies for delivering cooling and effectively managing energy use and achieving reductions in cooling demand.

It warns that governments must accurately assess how much cooling is needed to meet societal, environmental, health, well-being, economic and adaptation goals in a warming world. Should countries fail to answer these questions, any thermal planning will be inadequate with policy, infrastructure and technology development diminished. Such failure could have far-reaching social, economic and environmental consequences, with both societal and climate targets unmet.

Toby Peters, Professor of Cold Economy at Heriot-Watt University and the University of Birmingham, co-authored the report alongside Dr Leyla Sayin from the University of Birmingham, and the lead author, Dr Tim Fox.

Professor Peters, who is also Director at the Centre for Sustainable Cooling, said: “Cooling is already vital to our safety and comfort, health, food security and our economic well-being. Our most pressing goal remains to ensure basic needs are met for all people in a warming world, while living within our natural resource limitations and mitigating future risks to our survival on the planet.

“Cooling already accounts for more than 10% of human global greenhouse gas emissions, we need to delivery access cooling while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate further climate change.

“Given both the fast-growing need for cooling and also its impact on our energy systems, we have uncovered compelling evidence for the global recognition of cooling as critical national infrastructure.”

Already in today’s warmer UK climate between 30-60 stores per large retailer are thought to be experiencing whole store cooling system failures within a matter of days when temperatures exceed equipment design boundaries. An estimated 90% of hospital buildings in England are vulnerable to overheating and similar shortcoming exist in other countries worldwide.

The report makes several key recommendations for policy makers including:

• Treating cooling systems as essential to national resilience and planning - backed by funded studies to help ensure they meet future needs.
• Creating policies that promote fair and equitable cooling solutions – making sure cooling systems are environmentally sustainable.
• Including climate migration in adaptation plans, helping people stay in their communities and making destination areas more resilient.
• Promoting integration of renewable energy and waste heat recovery in cooling systems for better performance and benefits.
• Funding national programmes to train people in designing, operating, and maintaining advanced and sustainable cooling technologies.

The report also recommends a range of actions for academic communities and industry leaders to help ensure that they support governments in meeting cooling needs as part of critical national infrastructure. These measures include researchers developing tools, methods, technologies and business models that will help policy makers to understand future cooling needs and integrate more efficient cooling systems. Industry leaders should develop and commercialise cooling technologies that are just and inclusive, as well as sustainable and effective in hotter conditions.

The introduction to the report was written by Professor Richard A. Williams, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, who warned of an urgent need to deliver sustainable cooling to continue to support lives around the world.

He explains: “Clean cooling is one of the greatest societal needs to improve human life. It is also an area that has been lost in the clamour of voices in the sustainability arena and largely forgotten as part of core pathway in the journey to net-zero energy transition.

“Education at all levels needs to recognise the global scale of the need. The focus of education at technical, college and university level especially needs to be resident in the geographical areas and communities that are most in need of adoption of the technology.

“At Heriot-Watt, we are already feeding sustainable cooling into our curricula, including a new Masters programme being launched in Africa. Likewise, we are key partners in the development for centres of excellence and technical colleges across these domains such as the initiative in forming the Africa Centre for Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold Chain. We also have on the ground projects underway working with communities in focusing on 'phase change materials technologies' in Zambia led by Prof Ted Henry and student teams in our engineering schools working alongside our alumni Watt Club Zambia".

Critical national infrastructure is defined in the UK as facilities which, if compromised, could seriously disrupt essential services – possibly leading to significant loss of life or casualties. Losing such infrastructure elements could have a major impact on national security, defence, or basic functioning of the country.

Clean Cooling starts with action to reduce the demand for cooling and deliver efficiency improvements in systems providing it, while ensuring access to cooling for everyone. It encourages behavioural change; better use of passive cooling and using very low global warming potential refrigerants in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment.

However, the report highlights that, while these interventions are essential, given the growth in cooling demand, they alone cannot achieve the required reductions in energy usage, emissions and pollution.

Dr Tim Fox, lead author of the report, said: “In the absence of a whole-of-government, muti-sector, CNI level approach to policymaking on cooling infrastructure, governments risk failing to lay the foundations for well-adapted, climate-resilient cooling provision. This will create vulnerability, low national resilience to rising temperatures and more frequent severe heatwaves, and risks to services that are vital to the food, health, industrial, digital and economic security of a country and well-being of its citizens. Services, the integrity of which if compromised, can lead to loss of life and significant economic and social impacts, ultimately leading to a reduced ability of a State to function and potentially societal breakdown. The stakes could not be higher.”

The report was launched at an event jointly hosted by the Centre for Sustainable Cooling and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) at IMechE’s Headquarters in London.