The Hot Reality: Living in a +50°C World
Cooling is critical infrastructure for tackling the impact of climate change
The Hot Reality: Living in a +50°C World (published 18th July) calls for a radical shift in policy to create more ambitious strategies for delivering cooling and effectively managing energy use and achieving reductions in cooling demand.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham-led Centre for Sustainable Cooling warn that governments must accurately assess how much cooling is needed to meet societal, environmental, health, well-being, economic and adaptation goals in a warming world. Should countries fail to answer these questions, any thermal planning will be inadequate with policy, infrastructure and technology development diminished. Such failure could have far-reaching social, economic and environmental consequences, with both societal and climate targets unmet.
Authored by Dr Tim Fox, Dr Leyla Sayin and Professor Toby Peters, the report features contributions from more than 35 subject matter experts around the globe. It examines the impact of rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves on humans and essential cooling and cold-chain services which we rely upon to survive and thrive. The report makes several key recommendations for policy makers including:
- Treating cooling systems as essential to national resilience and planning - backed by funded studies to help ensure they meet future needs.
- Creating policies that promote fair and equitable cooling solutions – making sure cooling systems are environmentally sustainable.
- Including climate migration in adaptation plans, helping people stay in their communities and making destination areas more resilient.
- Promoting integration of renewable energy and waste heat recovery in cooling systems for better performance and benefits.
- Funding national programmes to train people in designing, operating, and maintaining advanced and sustainable cooling technologies.
The report also recommends a range of actions for academic communities and industry leaders to help ensure that they support governments in meeting cooling needs as part of critical national infrastructure. These measures include researchers developing tools, methods, technologies and business models that will help policy makers to understand future cooling needs and integrate more efficient cooling systems. Industry leaders should develop and commercialise cooling technologies that are just and inclusive, as well as sustainable and effective in hotter conditions.
Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) is defined in the UK as facilities which, if compromised, could seriously disrupt essential services – possibly leading to significant loss of life or casualties. Losing such infrastructure elements could have a major impact on national security, defence, or basic functioning of the country.
The report explores how in the absence of a whole-of-government, multi-sector, CNI level approach to policymaking on cooling infrastructure, governments risk failing to lay the foundations for well-adapted, climate-resilient cooling provision. This will create vulnerability, low national resilience to rising temperatures and more frequent severe heatwaves, and risks to services that are vital to the food, health, industrial, digital and economic security of a country and well-being of its citizens. Services, the integrity of which if compromised, can lead to loss of life and significant economic and social impacts, ultimately leading to a reduced ability of a State to function and potentially societal breakdown.
- Read the Report Summary (PDF download)
- Read the Full Report (PDF download)
- Read the November 2023 Briefing (PDF download)
