Malcolm McCulloch
Director
Cooling is necessary for the quality of life of billions of people living in developing countries and, increasingly, for those developed countries traditionally unprepared for ever more frequent heatwaves due to climate change.
The energy needed for air conditioning is likely to triple by 2050, with ten new air conditioning units projected to be sold every second for the next 30 years. This huge demand has the potential to drive up greenhouse gas emissions and therefore further exacerbate the very problem it is designed to alleviate.
Shaping future cooling demand patterns is potentially the most significant opportunity we have to moderate the trajectory of energy demand. However, we do not yet understand where the greatest social, technical and economic innovations could be made, and therefore lack an evidence base for interventions. Similarly, the benefits of cooling for reducing rates of heat-related illness have not yet been fully researched.
This study investigates the future of cooling as a dynamic system, and examines its interlinkages across Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the developing and developed world. Our aim is to steer the system towards sustainable cooling for all, and to establish cooling as a global priority for the successful implementation of the SDGs.
We are concentrating on space cooling (from air conditioning, fans, and other, non-energy-dependent passive cooling techniques), which is the largest energy consumer amongst the cooling sectors, and are examining three critical, inter-related aspects of future cooling.
These include:
Our methods include surveys and trend analysis, modelling, experiments, qualitative fieldwork and case studies in fast-growing developing countries (India and South Africa) and developed countries at risk of increased heatwaves (France and the UK).
Our research focuses explicitly on creating solutions, including policy influence on cooling energy demand and social aspects of climate mitigation, the design and implementation of alternative supply chains, enhancing the uptake of the best-in-class refrigerant gases as well as evidence-based guidelines to better handle the healthcare burden of severe heat.
In addition to its focus on space cooling, the programme is critically assessing agricultural and industrial cold-chain systems. It is developing a typology of different types of cold chains and evaluating them in terms of their environmental, economic and social sustainability. Crucially, in addition to suggesting their optimised design, it aims to derive context-specific policy recommendations how governments can best incentivise, govern and regulate low-carbon and effective cold chains.
Advisory Board
Our Advisory Board oversees the work of the programme, and comprises the following members: Amory Lovins (Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus, Rocky Mountain Institute), Brian Motherway (Head of the Energy Efficiency Division, International Energy Agency), Damilola Ogunbiyi (CEO, Sustainable Energy for All), Dan Hamza-Goodacre (Executive director, Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program), Iain Campbell (Senior Fellow, Rocky Mountain Institute), Paul Glasziou (Director of the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, Bond University), Tina BirmpilI (Executive Secretary, United Nation Environment Programme Ozone Secretariat), Sam Bickersteth (CEO, Opportunity International, and panel chair).
Growing international demand for cooling is set to drive one of the most substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions in history – but the risks and benefits of sustainable cooling remain a global blind spot, according to research.
The arrival of summer in the Northern Hemisphere has caused increased interest, from both the research community and the public at large, about the possibility that warmer weather might slow the spread of COVID-19.
Overcoming the incumbency and barriers to sustainable cooling
The multidimensionality of energy poverty in Brazil: A historical analysis
Understanding cooling poverty from the ‘margins’
Circular economy for cooling: A review to develop a systemic framework for production networks
Indigenous cosmologies of energy for a sustainable energy future
Supercooled sodium acetate aqueous solution for long-term heat storage to support heating decarbonisation
UK net zero strategies are overlooking something vital: how to cool buildings amid rising temperatures
This energy was always dear to me
The World Needs to Ramp Up Solutions for Greener Cooling
10 New Air Conditioners Every Second: How To Stay Cool On A Warming Planet
Air conditioning for all? Hotter world faces risk of 'cooling poverty'
18th October 2022: 10:00am
31st May 2022: 5:00pm
7th June 2022: 5:00pm
24th May 2022: 5:00pm
16th May 2022: 5:00pm
26th April 2022: 5:00pm
8th March 2022: 5:00pm
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