Responsible Innovation

A 2020 United Nations and International Energy Agency Report addressed both the contribution made by air conditioning to climate change as well as the opportunity to mitigate climate change by improving the energy efficiency of air conditioning and using an alternative to hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants. See Cooling Emissions; Policy Synthesis Report: Benefits of Cooling Efficiency; the Kigali Amendment (UNEP IEA, 2020). The report states on Page 12 that:

By combining energy efficiency improvements with the transition away from super-polluting refrigerants, the world could avoid cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of up to 210-460 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) over the next four decades, depending on future rates of decarbonisation. This is roughly equal to 4-8 years of total annual global greenhouse gas emissions, based on 2018 levels.