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Sustainable Energy For All

Summary

Sustainable Energy for All’s new report Chilling Prospects reveals the escalating threat from lack of access to cooling on people’s ability to survive extreme heat, and warns that this is the decisive decade to deliver fast and sustainable cooling solutions.

• Urgent action and investment needed to protect the 1.2 billion people most at risk from extreme heat and a lack of access to cold chains.
• Access to cooling is the linchpin to enable global food security and storage of medical supplies, protect livelihoods, and reduce heat-related deaths.
• Achieving SDG 7.1.1 (electrification) and SDG 1.1 (extreme poverty eradication) alone enables solutions that would spare nearly a half billion people from high risk of extreme heat by 2030—reducing the overall number of those at high risk by 36 percent.
• How cooling needs are met this decade—how fast and with which solutions—will be decisive for delivering just, inclusive clean energy transitions, adapting to a warming climate, and keeping the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within reach.

But solutions exist:

• Across the Global South, powering health facilities with off-grid renewable energy and boosting efficiency of off-grid appliances would deliver reliable and cost-effective cooling in countries with electricity access gaps, but investment is needed now to realize this by 2030.
• Nature-based solutions such as tree planting help green urban areas and increase access to shade. 
• Technology-based solutions such as affordable, hyper-efficient air conditioners, well-designed buildings, and district cooling systems.