Thirty-Fourth Meeting of the Parties

Title: Challenges toward Carbon Neutrality by 2050: Japan’s Fluorocarbons Policy and Actions from Industry and Academia

Description: In this side event, METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry) and MOE (Ministry of Environment) will introduce Japan's Fluorocarbons Policy, followed by JRAIA (The Japan Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Industry Association) to provide latest efforts and challenges industry face to achieve Japan’s target for Carbon Neutrality 2050.

In addition, JSRAE (Japan Society of Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) will explain the current status of efforts and recommendations in Japan.

Contact:
Ms. Miyuki Tsuji
tsuji@jraia.or.jp

Title: Methodologies and Services for RAC sector integration into NDCs   

Description: The demand for cooling is increasing globally. Consequently, emissions from the refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) sector will keep rising as well. The transition to Green Cooling technologies can decrease these emissions significantly. Consequently, it is pivotal to develop cooling sector specific mitigation targets and measures that are integrated in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). 

Although more than half the countries that updated their NDCs have recognised the relevance of the cooling sector, and specifically the importance to mitigate HFC emissions, there is still a huge gap in terms of concrete measures and implementation strategies.

Considering the importance and significant mitigation potential of the RAC sector for more ambitious and enhanced NDCs, this side event will provide guidance on how to appropriately cover the cooling sector in a NDC. Furthermore, it addresses the question how the ambition of cooling sectors targets can be increased once the NDC is updated.
 

Contact:
Ms. Christin Johnen
christin.johnen@giz.de

Title: The 91 Billion Tonne Opportunity: Lifecycle Refrigerant Management (LRM)
 

Description: The Montreal Protocol’s forward-looking policies to transition away from climate harming HFCs and their ozone depleting predecessors do not yet address refrigerant banks. Lifecycle refrigerant management—including leak prevention, recovery, and reclamation—could prevent up to 91 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions from reaching the atmosphere by 2100. This side event will outline the main pillars of robust lifecycle refrigerant management and bring together experts across industry, government, and civil society to discuss challenges and successes toward implementation.
 

Contact:
Ms. Kristen Taddonio
ktaddonio@igsd.org

Title: Rising up for Small Island Developing States: Challenges and opportunities towards sustainable cooling and efficient cold chain

Description: 

United Nations recognizes a special case for sustainable development in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) due to their distinct characteristics and challenges. SIDS face such development challenges as lack of economic diversification, fiscal constraints, and barriers to full integration into the global economy. At the same time SIDS are among the world’s most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Cooling in several sectors of the economy is significant and growing -- from realizing thermal comfort in buildings, to maintaining ideal storage conditions for vaccines and medicines, transporting perishable food along agriculture and food supply chains, and to controlling temperature in industrial processes. The use of cooling is critical and ubiquitous. It is projected that the current estimated 3.6 billion cooling appliances in use will jump nearly 4 times by 2050[1] if all cooling demands are met. Unfortunately, the increasing use of air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment can be harmful to the climate, as these cooling systems are often very energy intensive and reliant on fossil-fuel-generated electricity, and sometimes contain refrigerants that can be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming effect.

SIDS face higher risks due to climate change[2] and the majority of them are still heavily dependent on fossil fuel imports which takes a heavy toll on their already constrained fiscal space. Therefore, enhancing energy efficiency and reducing food loss and waste in SIDS not only helps to reduce greenhouse gas emission but also provides significant financial benefits. The access to sustainable cooling is one of the important adaptive measures which need to be taken by SIDS. In the context of SIDS, the remoteness, small size, and lack of expertise make accessibility and scaling up of advanced cooling technology more challenging. Effective remote on-line training options plus local training equipment is a must to allow the introduction and consolidation of sustainable cooling. There are also significant financial gaps in building the cold chain infrastructure.

With funding from New Zealand, UNDP provides capacity building and technical support to a number of SIDS (Maldives, Fiji, Timor-Leste, Belize, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago) to make their cooling sector more sustainable and efficient. Hosted by the Montreal Protocol Unit of UNDP, this side event will spotlight and share experience of small island developing states in addressing their cold chain and cooling needs in a sustainable manner and offer space for discussion of challenges and opportunities.

Contact:
Mr. Ajiniyaz Reimov
ajiniyaz.reimov@undp.org

Title: Looking to the Future Beyond Kigali Ratification      

Description: Representatives from the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy and from the U.S. government will discuss the status of implementation of the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, the domestic U.S. law that achieves the HFC phasedown in the United States, and the focus of U.S. industry post-Kigali ratification.  Presenters will include representatives from the United States Department of State and the Environmental Protection Agency, Kevin Fay, Executive Director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, Karen Meyers, Vice President of Rheem Manufacturing and current Alliance Board Chair, John Hurst, Vice President of Lennox Industries International, and immediate past Alliance Board Chair, Esther Rosenberg, Sustainability Director, The Chemours Company, and Samantha Slater, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs for the Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute.  Speakers will make brief presentations.  Following the presentations, the audience will be invited to participate in a roundtable discussion with the presenters.

Contact:
Mr. Kevin Fay
fay@alcalde-fay.com