By Eamonn Ryan
In her Green Cooling Summit address, GIZ managing director Ingrid Gabriela Hoven quantified the scale of the sector’s emissions and showcased decades of project experience.
GIZ has been working on green cooling for more than 30 years. Macrovector | Magnific.com
For HVAC&R engineers and designers, the numbers behind cooling’s climate impact are becoming impossible to ignore. This context helps explain why efficiency, refrigerant choice, and system design are under growing scrutiny from policymakers and funders.
Hoven stressed that climate change is a key threat to security and a driver of social inequality, making the transition to sustainable cooling a global priority. Among the sectors that must contribute to emissions reductions, cooling features prominently.
According to Hoven, the cooling sector accounts for around 7.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This figure covers:
- Direct emissions from high‑GWP refrigerants
- Indirect emissions from electricity consumption of cooling equipment
To address this, GIZ has been working on green cooling for more than 30 years. She highlighted the Proklima programme, which has been at the forefront of ozone and climate protection, with:
- More than 340 projects worldwide
- An estimated reduction of 120 million tonnes of CO₂‑equivalent emissions
- A climate impact comparable to around 30 coal‑fired power plants
These numbers underline the mitigation potential of the cooling sector when climate‑friendly technologies and refrigerants are deployed at scale.
“We have achieved a reduction of 120 million CO₂ tons equivalent, the equivalent of around 30 coal-fired plants. So this is a huge contribution to climate protection and climate resilience.”
For HVAC&R professionals, GIZ’s track record serves as proof that real, large‑scale emissions cuts are achievable through:
- Energy-efficient cooling solutions
- Low‑GWP or natural refrigerants
Projects and programmes that combine technology, policy and capacity building
