Adopting sustainable cooling could cut greenhouse gas emissions, save trillions of dollars and expand life-saving cooling access to those who need it, according to a new report launched on Wednesday at the climate change conference in Belém, Brazil (COP30).
The report, Global Cooling Watch 2025, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), finds that cooling demand could more than triple by 2050 under business as usual, driven by increases in population and wealth, more extreme heat events and low-income households increasingly gaining access to more polluting and inefficient cooling.
This would almost double cooling-related greenhouse gas emissions over 2022 levels – pushing cooling emissions to an estimated 7.2 billion tons of CO2e by 2050 – despite efforts to improve energy efficiency, phase down climate-warming refrigerants and overwhelm power grids during peak load.
When coupled with medium grid decarbonization targets, the plan delivers a 68% reduction versus the 2022 baseline, an UNEP spokesperson told The Brussels Times. In 2022, total GHG emissions globally were 57.4 Gt CO2e. The Global Cooling Emissions Model estimates the emissions from cooling in 2022 to 4.2 Gt CO2e or 7.3% of total emissions. UNEP expects 2025 to be very similar.
“As deadly heat waves become more regular and extreme, access to cooling must be treated as essential infrastructure alongside water, energy and sanitation,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP. “But we cannot air condition our way out of the heat crisis, which would drive greenhouse gas emissions higher and raise costs.”
“Passive, energy efficient and nature-based solutions can help meet our growing cooling needs and keep people, food-chains and economies safe from heat as we pursue global climate goals. We have no excuse: it is time we beat the heat”.
The UNEP-led Cool Coalition is a global multi-stakeholder network. Some 72 nations have joined the Global Cooling Pledge, a pledge initiated by the United Arab Emirates at COP28 in 2023. The pledge is a voluntary political commitment announced at the COP and was not part of the formal negotiation process (non-negotiated declaration).
As of mid-2025, 29 countries had established specific greenhouse gas reduction targets for the cooling sector, with a further five developing such targets. In total, 134 countries have incorporated cooling into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) or other national climate strategies.
The EU is an “observer” to the Pledge, the UNEP spokesperson explained. Only 9 EU Member States have signed the Pledge (Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain).
There is one NDC submitted for the EU as a whole as the Members States do not submit NDCs individually. The EU NDC was submitted just before the start of COP30 and does not mention the Global Cooling Pledge specifically.
For the building sector, however, the NDC requires Member States to increase the share of renewable energy in heating and cooling combined by 0.8 % annually to 2025 and 1.1 % thereafter, reaching an indicative target of 49% by 2030.
“Fortaleza is putting nature at the heart of climate adaptation and mitigation," commented Evandro Leitão, mayor of Fortaleza, Brazil. “We are committed to scaling green corridors and microparks that cool our city and protect the most vulnerable. This is about equity, health, and livability—and through Beat the Heat we want to share and learn with cities in Brazil and worldwide.”
According to the European Commission, emissions from heating and cooling of buildings are still by far dominated by heating but cooling accounts for an increasing share of these emissions. There is no EU official estimate specifically on cooling emissions.
Nor is a specific reduction target set at EU level. EU says that its combined set of policies is reducing emissions in this sector, given the target of achieving net zero GHG emissions by 2050 (for example the Renewable Energy Directive, the F-gas regulation and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive)
Update: The article has been updated with background information from the European Commission.
