Cooling is critical infrastructure for tackling climate change impact
Published: 31 July, 2024
According to a new report governments and policy makers must recognise cooling as critical national infrastructure (CNI) if humanity is to build resilience to the impact of climate change.
The report - 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.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham-led Centre for Sustainable Cooling warn 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.
Authored by Dr Tim Fox, Dr Leyla Sayin and Professor Toby Peters, the report features contributions from more than 35 subject matter experts around the globe. It examines the impact of rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves on humans and essential cooling and cold-chain services which we rely upon to survive and thrive.
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.
Centre for Sustainable Cooling Director and report co-author Toby Peters, Professor of Cold Economy at the University of Birmingham and Heriot-Watt University commented: “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.”
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.
Dr Tim Fox, lead author of the report, said “In the absence of a whole-of-government, multi-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, leading to a reduced ability of a State to function and potentially societal breakdown. The stakes could not be higher. 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.”
Report co-author and Deputy Director, Centre for Sustainable Cooling Dr Leyla Sayin commented: “We need a radical shift in policy to devise more ambitious strategies for achieving reductions in cooling demand. Governments must accurately assess how much cooling we need in an ever-warming world, whilst ensuring no one is left behind.
“Clean Cooling is about future-proofing society and ensuring a more sustainable relationship between humans and the planet we call home — a place where we not only survive but need to thrive. Our starting point must be recognising cooling as critical national infrastructure.”
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.
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