THE HOT REALITY - COOLING IS CRITICAL NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Rising ambient temperatures and the increasing frequency and severity of heatwaves urgently demand more cooling for health, food, productivity, data and, increasingly, safe and comfortable living. Recent events highlight the critical need for action: India suffers blackouts as cooling demand overloads the electricity grid; more than 1,300 Hajj pilgrims died in Mecca as temperatures exceeded 50°C, and Greece has shut the site of the ancient Acropolis to tourists, closed schools, and stationed medics across Athens as it faces heatwaves of the summer. These tragedies underscore the urgency of our mission.

?Today, 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. But equally, we must strive to enhance the quality of life for all, while simultaneously delivering environmental growth in collaboration with the global and local ecosystems that provide the resources upon which we depend to survive and thrive.

?Now, more than ever, we need globally to recognise cooling as critical national infrastructure - and in so doing leapfrog to Clean Cooling - resilient cooling for all who need it that simultaneously contributes towards achieving society’s goals for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, natural resource conservation, air quality improvement, and sustainable development. ?Clean Cooling is, ultimately, 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.

As a first step, governments must accurately assess how much cooling is actually required to meet societal, environmental, health, well-being, economic and adaptation goals in a warming world, ensuring no one is left behind. There is a significant probability that if countries fail to answer these questions, any thermal planning will be inadequate, and they will risk contributing to a lack of ambition in policy, infrastructure and technology development. This could have far-reaching social, economic and environmental consequences, with both societal and climate targets not being achieved.

Next week (July 18th) we will be launch our full report at ImechE, London on "Cooling as critical infrastructure to survive and thrive".