Global Cooling Watch 2025

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 is the finding of the report Global Cooling Watch 2025, launched in November 2025 at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, by the Cool Coalition led by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The above trends 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.

Sustainable cooling pathway

The report suggests adopting a “Sustainable Cooling Pathway” which could reduce emissions to 64 per cent – 2.6 billion tons of CO2e – below the levels expected in 2050. When combined with rapid decarbonisation of the global power sector, residual cooling emissions could fall to 97 per cent below business-as-usual levels.

A Sustainable Cooling Pathway can provide access to space cooling or refrigeration, resilient buildings and urban green spaces to all – including low-income and vulnerable groups such as smallholder farmers, women and the elderly – without exacerbating the climate crisis. This Pathway is based on passive cooling strategies, low-energy and hybrid cooling that combines fans and air conditioners, rapid adoption of high-efficiency equipment and accelerated phase-down of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants under the Kigali Amendment. 

Prioritising passive and nature-based solutions

Nearly two-thirds of the emissions cuts available come from passive and low-energy solutions, reinforcing the urgency of embedding them in national policies and urban planning. Such solutions are also highly affordable and critical for improving access to cooling for three billion more people by 2050. If adopted, the Pathway could save 17 trillion US dollars in cumulative energy costs through to 2050 and avoid up to USD 26 trillion in grid investment through reduced electricity demand.

The report issues a series of recommendations to increase action, including moving from emergency response mode to proactive, multi-level governance on extreme heat and cooling, treating heat protection and cooling as a public good, and prioritising passive and Nature-based Solutions – including urban design – to cut cooling loads, mitigate the urban heat island effect and reduce grid stress.

(UNEP/ile)

Read more and download the report Global Cooling Watch 2025 on the UNEP website