The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s recent report on Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability makes it clear that intensifying heat and humidity in India could be increasingly challenging for people to survive. In addition to raising temperatures, climate change and rising income levels increase the demand for cooling—leading to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
The future demand for cooling will intensify with increasing global trend of average and peak temperatures. As per World Meteorological Organization (WMO), year 2021 was one of the planet's seven hottest years witnessing the rise of more than 10C average global temperature.
The recent trends of heat waves in the parts of south asian countries, have exposed the risks to the global communities. In India alone, March 2022 was the hottest month in the previous 122 years of historical data (since 1901) recorded by the Indian Metrological Department. IPCC's sixth assessment report speculates that India is likely to face more frequent and severe heat waves as a result of climate change in coming decades. Experiencing the negative effects of abnormally hot summers, drier conditions and more frequent heat waves, cooling is becoming more of a necessity. However, it is equally required to handle this need for cooling in a climate friendly manner to avoid any further contribution to global warming.
India has for decades played a key role in bringing about the success of the Montreal Protocol, arguably the most successful international environmental treaty to date. India was central to the formation of the Kigali Amendment, signing the original 2016 document. India has led the way for other countries showcasing success implementation of the Protocol and its amendments through well designed and implemented national policies. It is also one of the first countries to launch its comprehensive India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) in 2019, with an overarching goal of providing “sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all while securing environmental and socio-economic benefits for the society”. In addition, country’s ratification in September 2021 to Montreal Protocol's Kigali Amendment to phase-down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), is a huge step towards the Kigali Amendment’s success.
To maximize the socio- economic benefits, besides environmental gains, it is important for India’s refrigeration and air conditioning sector to consider the aspects of energy efficient cooling and sustainable adoption of low-global warming potential refrigerants simultaneously in a way to maximize its gains through the implementation of the Kigali Amendment. As India charts its way forward for Kigali Amendment implementation and ICAP implementation, domestically, it is important to think through some of the challenges that will emerge for the industry to mainstream low GWP refrigerants and build solutions ahead of time. The time is now to discuss and analyse opportunities to maximise the HFC phase down gains both in terms of emissions and time. Similarly, role of best-in-class appliance energy efficiency standards and effective implementation of building energy codes provide an important opportunity to reduce the cooling demand (therefore refrigerant demand) and meet the demand with the most energy efficient equipment in the market. It’s now time to think through mechanisms to scale up the efforts ongoing in the country and design new techniques to maximise gains for climate friendly cooling.
In this context, TERI under the project - Alliance for Sustainable Habitat, Energy Efficiency and Thermal Comfort for All (SHEETAL) is organizing a high-level brainstorming event inviting the stakeholders including government, industry, academia and financial institutions to think through some of these aspects and set up India for success in the decades to come. The discussion is organized around three key themes- future strategy for India to phase down HFCs, sustainable adoption of low GWP refrigerants in India’s cooling sector and role of energy efficient equipment and buildings in India’s efforts to meet Kigali Amendments 0.50C goal and ICAP targets.

Reports: Report Link

Agenda: Agenda Link