ECOS | Environmental Coalition on Standards

13 January 2021

ECOS joins UN-backed Cool Coalition for climate-friendly cooling

ECOS has recently joined the Cool Coalition, a global network of 100+ governments, businesses, finance, academia and civil society partners committed to cutting emissions from cooling appliances – a source of climate change rapidly growing as temperatures on the planet rise.

Air-conditioners are becoming more and more popular. In fact, the number of air-cons is expected to reach 5.6 billion worldwide by 2050, up from 1.6 billion today, according to IEA estimations. If we do not act, air-cons, together with refrigerators, fridges and other cooling appliances, have the potential to bring an unprecedented surge in emissions stemming from their energy consumption and the fluorinated refrigerants needed for their operation – a notorious family of gases with warming effect of up to almost 15,000 times higher than CO2.

As part of our role to accelerate a rapid transition towards efficient and climate-friendly cooling, we are joining the Cool Coalition, a UN-backed global multi-stakeholder network that connects a wide range of key actors from government, cities, international organisations, businesses, finance, academia, and civil society groups. The Coalition’s goal is to facilitate knowledge exchange, advocacy and joint action towards a rapid global transition to efficient and climate-friendly cooling.

‘As temperatures rise across the planet, sales of cooling products are skyrocketing. However, if we do not switch to greener solutions, the more we try to cool down, the warmer our planet will become. ECOS strives to break this vicious circle by advocating for super energy efficient cooling products and a phase-out of HFCs through both policies and standards’, ECOS executive director Justin Wilkes explains.

As part of the coalition, we will exchange information with over 100 international members, who are actors in the field of refrigeration. We will also help promote the coalition’s campaigns and advocacy actions to raise awareness about climate-friendly cooling technologies. Together, we will seek to reach ambitious commitments on efficient and climate-friendly cooling. In addition, we will inform other members on our work with standardisation organisations, both on a worldwide (ISO, and IEC), and at the pan-European level (CEN and CENELEC).

In fact, 2021 will be a crucial year to reduce the impact of refrigeration in the world, starting in Europe, where EU institutions will review their F-Gas regulation and their ecodesign rules on air-conditioning.

To learn more about our work on F-gases, visit our dedicated page here.

To learn more about the Cool Coalition, visit their website here.

ECOS is co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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