Public Safety, Health And Food Security At Risk Due To Lack Of Cooling Access

• Addressing unreliable, energy inefficient cold chains for life-saving medicines and safe food key to deliver sustainable cooling access without exacerbating the climate crisis

• Latest SEforALL report calls on governments, industry and development finance to urgently provide sustainable cooling solutions for high-risk groups

• Data shows that 12 countries across Africa have more than 60% of their populations at high risk of broken cold chains for nutritious food and effective vaccines

As temperatures hit record highs globally, significant African populations are at increasing risk from lack of cooling access according to Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) report, Chilling Prospects: Tracking Sustainable Cooling for All 2019, released today.The Chilling Prospects report shines a light on the growing ‘cooling access’ challenge, a spike in global energy demand, and profound climate impacts. This report finds that the public safety, health, safe medicine and food supply for 1.05 billion people in poor rural and urban areas are now at risk from lack of access to cooling.This is a particular challenge for Africa, with significant populations across 12 African countries identified at highest risk. African countries with more than 60% of their population at risk include Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, and Togo.

The report also finds that the growth rate of these high-risk countries is significantly greater than the rate of population growth. While population growth across Africa averages at 5.7%, the expected growth rate for those at high risk from lack of cooling access is 19.1% for the urban poor (those living largely in urban slums) and 28.7% for the rural poor (those living in rural areas and largely without access to electricity).

This increase in risk seems to be driven by rapid urbanization, drawing people from poor rural settings, placing more and more pressure on urban slums to support them, and a lack of electricity access gains.

“As the world rapidly urbanizes and temperatures only grow, we risk a significant increase in the number of people without access to sustainable cooling,” said António Mexia, Chairman of the SEforALL Administrative Board and CEO of Energias de Portugal (EDP). “By 2030, the cost of productivity losses will be $2 trillion, and it will be the developing world that suffers the greatest “productivity penalty” as they deal with record temperatures and lack of cooling, stunting economic growth and further exacerbating global cooling inequity.”

This year’s report, the second in the Chilling Prospects series, further shows a notable growth in the numbers of ‘urban poor’ – those living in cities yet often lacking reliable access to electricity – with 680 million people living in urban slums having little or no cooling to protect them in a heatwave – a rise of 50 million people in the past year – with an additional 365 million people living in poor rural areas also at high risk. A further 2.2 billion in the lower middle class are only able to afford cheaper, less energy efficient air conditioners, potentially causing a spike in global energy demand and extreme negative climate impacts.

Brian Dean, Head of Cooling and Energy Efficiency at Sustainable Energy for All, highlighted the need to see cooling access as a right: “In a warming world facing ongoing deadly impacts from climate change, we cannot view cooling as a luxury. In a heatwave, it can be a matter of life or death for children and older people. It ensures that workers are productive, that families can store nutritious food securely, and that infants can receive an effective vaccine in a rural clinic. Delivering sustainable cooling is an issue of equity that will enable millions to escape poverty and help to realize the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Launched during the Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol (MOP 31) in Rome, Italy, the Chilling Prospects: Tracking Sustainable Cooling for All 2019 report takes stock of progress made over the past year, highlighting new solutions to sustainable access to cooling and calling on governments, industry, and development finance to urgently work together to reduce the number of people at risk from lack of access to cooling. It also provides a new tool, The Cooling for All Needs Assessment, for governments, NGOs and development institutions to accurately size the market for cooling demands based on comfort, safety, nutrition and health needs.

Highlight findings and trends from the report further include:

• In 52 high-risk countries, 365 million people in rural areas and 680 million people in urban slums are at risk due to lack of access to safe food and medicines in poor rural areas and little or no cooling to protect poor urban slums in a heatwave.
• 2.2 billion people present a different risk, a rising, lower-middle class in developing countries, who are only able to afford cheaper, less efficient air conditioners that could create a spike in energy demand and rise in emissions.
• Across the 52 high-risk countries, at least 3.2 billion people face cooling access challenges in 2019
• Significant concentrations of rural people at highest risk remain in sub-Saharan Africa, in particular Mozambique, Nigeria & Uganda. Cities across the world are growing and becoming hotter, which is causing increasing pressure on their electricity systems to deliver cooling sustainably.

Many countries do not have national cooling plans that will invest in infrastructure to provide residential and commercial cooling, address damage to the climate by inefficient cooling systems and establish cold chains that support food security and medical security. Chilling Prospects: Tracking Sustainable Cooling for All 2019 also sets out a series of action-oriented recommendations, complete with resources, to allow policymakers, development financiers, and industry to accelerate access to cooling. These include:

• Government policymakers should develop and implement comprehensive national cooling plans that protect the vulnerable, using the Cooling for All Needs Assessment to measure demand and aggregate solutions.
• Donors, development practitioners and financiers should prioritize the most vulnerable. To do so, they must harness a diverse set of financing tools to deliver universal cooling access. There is also a clear need to track financial flowsdirected towards access to cooling for at-risk populations.
• Industry and business must ensure efficiency and affordability at the ‘Base of the Pyramid’, accelerating action through skills development, maintenance, and technician training.
• In addition to supporting policy planning at the national level, cities and local authorities should use the Cooling for All Needs Assessment to identify priority actions to protect their most vulnerable populations.

The report was produced in partnership and supported by the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP). The Chilling Prospects research is part of SEforALL’s Cooling for All initiative, which developed the report along with contributions from the Global Panel on Access to Cooling. Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of Sustainable Energy for All.