Financing climate-friendly cooling at city scale
Cooling has had a significant impact on global climate change. It is important to respond promptly and effectively to the climate challenges posed by the growing global demand for air-conditioning and refrigeration to achieve the Paris Agreement objectives and the mid-century carbon-neutral goals. Improving the energy efficiency of refrigeration and cooling equipment to reduce their energy consumption, lessening the burden of cooling on power systems (especially during periods of peak demand), and using climate-friendly refrigerants are all necessary means of mitigating the climate impact of the growing demand for cooling in developing countries. The lack of accessible and affordable financing, coupled with limited project scale to attract investment, is among the most critical obstacles to the effective deployment of climate-friendly cooling solutions in Asian developing countries. Promoting climate-friendly cooling solutions at city scale by bringing together green cooling project opportunities in multiple sectors across the city will achieve sufficient scale to attract investors and reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to cooling. The financing of large-scale deployment of green cooling solutions faces many obstacles requiring a comprehensive solution. This working paper presents an integrated model for financing city-scale green cooling initiatives by drawing on various international financing tools that will help remove the obstacles, and on diversified business models that will increase the return on cooling projects.
