UNIDO Sustainable Cooling Forum

Xiong will be sitting

Okay, never cover it because then it will also cause a feedback.

Good morning, DJ, please. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Vienna. Welcome to the International Vienna Center. Welcome to the Sustainable Sustainable Cooling Forum. We are very happy to have you here today. My name is Gentian Sema and I will be the event facilitator for today's session of the Sustainable Cooling Forum 2026. Today and over the next 3 days, we will be discussing sustainable cooling from every angle. —from policy to business models, technology, and partnerships that make replication at scale possible. Let me briefly orient you to Day 1. We will start with the opening session, including welcoming remarks from high-level delegates. We will then delve into 4 thematic sessions and conclude the day at 18 hours with a welcoming reception offered by UNIDO, which I heartily welcome you in and encourage you to join. And now, without further delay, I would like to invite our moderator for the opening session. As UNIDO's Deputy Director to the Director-General and Managing Director of the Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development, Mr. Xiong Zhu has been championing the Montreal Protocol, the Kigali Amendment, and the countries that need UNIDO support the most. Mr. Xiong Zhu, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Modritor. Actually, you already did an excellent job in introduction of this forum. Excellencies, distinguished representatives and partners, ladies and gentlemen, Good morning and very welcome to the UNIDO Sustainable Cooling Forum 2026, Rising to the Challenge. My name is Seung Soo. I'm the Deputy to the Director-General and the Managing Director for Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development Directorate at UNIDO. It is my honor to moderate this opening session. We have gathered here today Participants from more than 100 countries, because cooling sits at the intersection of some of the most urgent challenges of our time: ozone action, climate change, energy security, food security, industrial transformation, and human well-being. It is a subject that is technically complex and profoundly human, and it is a subject whose urgency is getting more pronounced. Let me provide some brief background. Firstly, this is the first global forum that UNITO has dedicated entirely to sustainable cooling. It is a milestone that reflects the need to address cooling demand holistically and meet this demand using all sustainable solutions available and the new ones. This requires our commitment to going beyond individual projects and engage this challenge as a whole system, one that requires us to align policy, technology, finance, and partnership at scale. Secondly, this Forum takes place in a special year, UNESCO's 60th anniversary, and in a special place, Vienna, the city where in 1985 the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was signed, giving birth to the framework treaty that gave the foundation to the Montreal Protocol. It is also the 10th anniversary of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. These are our most powerful collective instrument for both ozone recovery and climate protection. We honour this ancient legacy today, and we accept that responsibility it places on all of us to act with equal ambition in the years ahead. Over the next 3 days, our program will move deliberately through the key enablers of sustainable cooling: policy and regulatory frameworks, technology innovation, alternative options, solutions, financing, business models, adaptation, and private sector engagement. Each session has been designed not merely to present information but to generate insights, ideas, and partnerships to carry back to your countries, companies, and institutions. Tomorrow, your forum will be held jointly together with the International Vienna Energy and Climate Forum to highlight important synergies with climate, energy, and cooling. It will also provide an opportunity for UNIDO to further support this agenda and to highlight its contributions, particularly as the organization marks its 60th anniversary this year. Without further ado, actually I would like to use the occasion also to send a very warm welcome to UNIDO's basically distinguished panelists. Here, I think I firstly would like to mention a few of these names. Firstly, T.G. Kademola of UNITO. Then His Excellency Mr. Bolarabi Abbas Lawal, Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Welcome. His Excellency Mr. Ayman Suleiman, Minister of Environment of the Hassanat Kingdom of Jordan, who unfortunately could not travel and is participating online. Miss Mikubi Seki, the Executive Secretary of the Ozone Secretariat to the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol. Miss Tina Bompili, Chief Officer of the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of Montreal Protocol. And Mr. Yohei Onoshi, Director General of the International Institute of Registration. Without further ado, it is my pleasure to invite our DG, Mr. Käthe Müller, to deliver his opening statement. DG, the floor is yours, please.

Thank you, Mr. Siong, Excellency Minister Lawal from Nigeria, 33 degrees today in Lagos, very hot. Mr. Prembili, Ms. Seki Nakamura, Ms. Alutsch, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Vienna to our first UNIDO Sustainable Cooling Forum. It is a real pleasure to see so many of you here today. And let me say personally, we are all so happy about the ceasefire decision tonight in Iran. That is so important for the whole world and especially our LDCs, the countries in the Global South. Peace is the basic for all development. So when we talk about cooling, refrigeration, air conditioning, we are not discussing any technical issue. We are talking about something fundamental to development. Cooling is essential for public health—think about the clinic, medicine—and for safeguarding pharmaceutical supply chains. It keeps food safe along the supply chains. It is important for industrial productivity, and increasingly it is critical for climate resilience. Yet more than 1 billion people still lack access to adequate cooling, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America and Small Island Developing States. At the same time, the past 11 years have been the hottest on record. We have seen heat waves across the world that pose a serious threat to public health and safety. So next week I'm for a visit to Vietnam. Yesterday the temperature was 45 degrees Celsius. 42 degrees in Vietnam. The most vulnerable communities are hit the hardest, facing extreme, sometimes lethal heat without adequate protection. And that is unbelievable and unacceptable. At the same time, the cooling system we rely on, especially air conditioning, like here in the room, are responsible for 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, both from the refrigerants and from the electricity consumption. If we don't act now, electricity demand for cooling will triple by 2060— triple by 2060. Emissions will double, placing growing pressure on electricity systems in many countries, and this is too— this is unacceptable. Dear guests, this is the cooling paradox. Temperatures rise, demand for cooling increases, and it will further accelerate climate change. We need to break this cycle with efficient and sustainable cooling. The good news is we have the technical solutions about this and together we can implement them. The Montreal Protocol stands as one of the most successful examples of global cooperation in history. Yes, we do have the solutions. It is the only environment treaty adopted by every nation on Earth. And as a result, the ozone layer is healing thanks to the collective action. We must take this success as a blueprint and implement the Kigali Amendment with the same level of ambition and commitment. We must face down the use of HFCs, that is hydrofluorocarbons, especially in cooling, as these greenhouse gases while safe for the ozone layer, are powerful contributors to climate change. Through it, we can prevent up to 0.5 degrees of warming by the end of the century. And this impact can even be doubled if we also improve energy efficiency and cooling technologies. Ladies and gentlemen, UNEIDO is one of the leading implementation agencies of the Montreal Protocol. We support our member states in meeting their Montreal Protocol and Kigali Amendment obligations. And we help industries adapt the best available technologies and transition to cleaner, more modern production from the small businesses to large industrial facilities. And at this point, I want to express my great appreciation to our strong partners. Here. The Multilateral Fund, Miss Tina Permpili, my special thanks, my special thanks for the outstanding cooperation with you and your organization. And the OSOZON Secretariat, Miss Megumi Seki, thank you for the excellent cooperation over so many years. Thanks a lot and thanks that you are here now for discussion and talks. We want— UNIDO— we want to further strengthen this important priority of UNIDO's work. We are a technical agency of the UN and we do have the expertise and we are ambitious to strengthen our cooperation with you. Thank you so much. And I also want to thank all countries here today for your trust in our work. Let me highlight some of our achievements. Over the last 3 decades, we have mobilized $1.35 billion in support of countries and industries undertaking this transition. UNITA works in over 100 countries, and through our work, we have upgraded over 450 manufacturing lines. And in 2025 alone, our work helped to avoid over 150 million tons of emissions, comparable to removing 35 million cars from the roads. So we have the solutions to meet the growing cooling demand and our climate goals. Innovation across all aspects of cooling is the key. You know our motto: UNIDO is progress by innovation. When I talk and when I was asked about all the problems in the world around us, I always look at this great result implementing the Montreal Protocol. When I was a young man, so that was the overwhelming problem, the ozone problem in the '70s, '80s, and therefore, when there is the political will all over the world, then there is a solution even for the consequences of climate change, but we must act together. And first, ladies and gentlemen, governments must develop and implement national cooling action plans. National cooling action plans. It should and must be a part of the energy strategy in every country. Aligning climate and sustainable development goals and importantly send clear signals to the private sectors on actions. Second, the private sector industry must view sustainable cooling as an investment opportunity. The time for action is now. Sustainable cooling technologies and solutions exist. The task before us is to ensure that solutions are available, affordable, and scalable. That is very important— affordable, available in the countries of Global South, in the SIDS countries, in LLDCs, and so on. And that they are accessible for all, especially where cooling needs are most urgent. This is why our discussion will also continue beyond here, as cooling must be part of a larger sustainable energy system. And tomorrow at the Hofburg Palace, our discussions will join the International Vienna Energy and Climate Forum, and I invite you all to join. Now, I wish all of you a successful forum with engaging discussions, valuable insights, and new partnerships. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Director-General Müller. Your vision of sustainable cooling as a cross-cutting imperative connecting ozone action, climate, industry equity, and energy sets exactly the right compass for our three days together. We are grateful for your leadership and for the institutional commitment that UNIDO brings to this agenda. Thank you. I now have the honour to invite His Excellency Mr. Panarabi Abes Noah, Minister of Environment of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to deliver his opening remarks. Please.

Thank you very much. Let me start by recognizing the Deputy Director who is moderating this very important opening ceremony, and also Director General who has just given us very, very informative remarks. On what we are here for and what we expect out of this conference, and also my other colleagues that are here, the Executive Secretary of Ozone Secretariat, the Multinational Fund, the International Fund, the National Institute of Refrigeration. So I feel quite honored to be invited for this very important occasion which has to do with the issue of cooling. Like it was mentioned earlier by the DG, we are confronted with a very difficult situation where we have heat that is unbearable and we need to get some solution to the heat. And in trying to get the solution to the heat, we get into another problem— climate change. So it's a very difficult situation we find ourselves, but we have to find a way out. And this, I think, why we are here. So it is honor and a privilege for me to address this distinguished gathering at the Inidio Sustainable Cooling Forum here in Vienna, and I warmly welcome all the participants that are here and the delegates. I wish to commend Inidio for convening this timely platform which brings together key stakeholders to advance practical solutions for sustainable cooling, an increasingly critical component of climate action, industrial development, and economic resilience. I also extend my sincere appreciation to the people and government of Austria for their warm hospitality and hosting this important event. Sustainable cooling is vital not only for climate mitigation but for also for food security, public health, and economic productivity. Achieving this transition requires not only technology but also skilled human capital, strong institutions, and sustainable collaboration. In Nigeria, several Critical actions have been taken to address these challenges, including investment in technical capacity, strengthening education systems, and enhanced institutional frameworks in line with commitments under the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment. These priorities are also reflected in Nigeria's National Determined Contribution, NDC 3, which we just— which we submitted to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change. A key component, a key milestone in Nigerian Cooling Action Plan, which provides a clear pathway for transitioning to low global warming potentials and energy-efficient cooling technologies. The project is being advanced in collaboration with INIDO and other partners while supporting industries to adopt environmentally sustainable solutions. I want to indicate that through leadership of UNIDO, we have been able to address this— the industries in trying to make the cooling system reflect the, the, the, the, the environmental concerns. Notwithstanding this progress, the transition to stable cooling demands stronger collaboration across governments, industries, financial institutions, and partners. Addressing financial gaps, technological access, Workforce development and consumer awareness remains essential, particularly in developing countries like Nigeria. Ladies and gentlemen, this forum provides valuable opportunities to exchange knowledge, strengthen partnership, and accelerate collective action. Nigeria remains committed to working with all partners to advance sustainable cooling as a driver of climate protection, sustainable development, and improved quality of life. I want also to point out that we need the support of institutions like INIDO in whatever we are trying to do. And like I said earlier, INIDO has been giving a lot of support to us and we have been able to try to modify the kind of protection that we have in the current system in Nigeria. So I want to sincerely thank all those that are here. I want to thank INIDO for organizing this forum. And I believe that by the end of this forum, we're all going to be better educated and we are going to leave here better informed than we came here. I want to thank you very much for this opportunity.

Thank you, Minister Loa. Nigeria's scale, both in population and in the pace of its economic and industrial growth, makes it one of the defining stories of the global sustainable cooling transition. Your engagement with UNITO and the Montreal Protocol is proof that ambition and action can go hand in hand. Thank you. And now I have the honour to invite His Excellency Mr. Ayman Suleiman, Minister of Environment of the Hashemi Kingdom of Jordan to deliver his opening remarks. Your Excellency, the floor is yours. Please.

Please, allow me at the outset to express my sincere regret for not being able to join in person in Vienna today. Owing to the current situation, my participation in person was unfortunately not possible. Nevertheless, I'm honored to address this important forum at the continue and contribute to this timely discussion. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the EU and all partners for convening this important sustainable cooling forum. This gathering comes at a critical moment as sustainable cooling has become not only an environmental and technical priority, but also a development imperative for global warming importance. Cooling today is no longer a matter of comfort. It is a necessity for protecting public health, preserving food and medicines, supporting livelihoods, sustaining productivity, and and ensuring the continuity of essential services. For Jordan, this issue carries particular urgency as one of the most water-scarce and climate-vulnerable countries in the world. We are already witnessing the growing effects of climate change through rising temperatures, prolonged heat waves, and increasing stress on our natural resources. In this context, the demand for cooling will continue to grow. Our collective responsibility is therefore here to ensure that access to cooling expands in a manner that is sustainable, energy efficient, affordable, and climate friendly. Jordan remains fully committed to advancing this transition. Our efforts are guided by our obligations under the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment and are aligned with our national climate priorities and broader sustainable development objectives. We are working to accelerate the transition to low global warming potential refrigerants, refrigerants. Strengthen energy efficiency measures, enhance national capacities, and promote sustainable cooling solutions across priority sectors. We view sustainable cooling not only as an environmental objective but as a strategic pillar of resilience and sustainable growth. It contributes directly to energy security, reduces reduces pressure on electricity systems, strengthens climate adaptation, and supports inclusive economic development. At the same time, we must be clear: developing countries cannot advance this transition alone. Many continue to face serious challenges, including limited access to technology, high upfront investment development costs and capacity constraints. Yet these are the very countries that are often most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This underlines the importance of stronger international cooperation, greater access to finance, technology transfer, capacity building, and effective partnerships with implementing agencies and the private sector will be essential to accelerate progress. Sustainable cooling must be recognized globally as a key enabler for both climate action and sustainable development. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Jordan stands ready to continue working with the international partners to advance this agenda. With determination and responsibility. Let us seize this opportunity to move from commitment to implementation and to deliver sustainable cooling solutions that are practical, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of our people. The time for action is now.

Thank you. Thank you, His Excellency Minister Suleiman. His video message which reminds us that for frontline nations sustainable cooling is not a policy aspiration but a daily necessity tied directly to energy security and development. Also, we commend Jordan government's efforts in meeting the objectives of the Montreal Protocol. We need to explore to support the country in this endeavour. I now have the pleasure to invite Mr. Mogami Seki, the Executive Secretary of the Ozone Secretariat to the Vienna Convention and Montreux Protocol to share her opening remarks. Please.

Thank you very much.

Dr. Moula, Director-General of UNIDO, Mr. Laval, Your Excellency, Minister of Environment Nigeria, Mr. Suleiman, Minister of Environment of Jordan, Ms. Tina Bimbili, Chief Officer of the Multilateral Fund, Ms. Yossa Aloush, Director General of IIR. Excellencies, distinguished participants, Colleagues, partners, and friends. It is a great pleasure and honor for me to be here today at this Sustainable Cooling Forum of UNIDO. Thank you for convening this very important forum and for inviting the ozone secretariat. We meet at a key time in the history of international cooperation on the Montreal Protocol. Few multilateral agreements can show concrete, measurable results in reversing the damages done to our global commons. Through collective commitment, science-based decision-making, and sustained implementation and compliance, the global community has phased out about 99% of ozone-depleting substances, ODSs, and put the ozone layer on a path to recovery. This achievement stands as powerful proof that when we act together, we can successfully address and solve complex global challenges. This year is the 60th anniversary of UNIDO, And I would like to extend my warm congratulations to UNIDO for its 60th birthday. UNIDO's long-standing and outstanding work under the Montreal Protocol as an implementing agency of the Multilateral Fund, with its leadership in sustainable industrial development, has guided the parties ODS phase-out projects and industry conversions, advancing both environmental protection and economic transformation. This milestone must be celebrated. Now, this year also marks the 10th anniversary of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. It is an opportune time to look back at the achievements of the Kigali Amendment in the last 10 years and also look ahead at the challenges and opportunities to ensure an even more impactful future. At this juncture, we are writing the next chapter of the Montreal Protocol story through the Kigali Amendment. What began as an ozone protection treaty has evolved into one of the most effective climate mitigation instruments available to us. Full implementation of the Kigali Amendment has the potential to avoid up to 0.5 degrees centigrade of global warming by the end of the century. And when we combine this with energy efficiency enhancement, particularly in the cooling sector, the climate benefits may double to about 1 degree centigrade. In a world already experiencing significant rise in temperatures, sustainable cooling is not a luxury. It's essential for human health, economic productivity, and climate resilience. And I would say that sustainable cooling is an extension of the Kigali Amendment actions. It goes beyond compliance, but it is closely linked to the Montreal Protocol and the Kigali Amendment. An important point that I would like to emphasize in cooling is that we must adopt a system thinking or system approach. The HFC phase-down through refrigerant transition while essential, is not sufficient on its own. Sustainable cooling requires parallel progress across multiple dimensions. We need stronger and harmonized energy efficiency standards to reduce both emissions and electricity demand. We must invest in resilient and sustainable cold chain infrastructure for food systems and healthcare. We need to strengthen technician training and certification systems so that new technologies are properly installed, maintained, and managed. And we must scale up passive cooling solutions and climate-responsive building design, reducing reliance on mechanical cooling. Wherever possible. Trade-offs and optimization opportunities of the components of the whole, whole cooling systems must be identified. The Multilateral Fund finances projects in Article 5 parties to face down ODSs and HFCs through industry conversions and institution strengthening. It also covers relevant energy efficiency activities. A challenge is finding ways and means to finance over and above multilateral fund the components of sustainable cooling systems that are beyond the Montreal Protocol. Distinguished participants and colleagues, forum like this one is so important because they create a space where governments, implementing agencies, and industry can come together not only to discuss obligations under the treaty but to translate them into practical, on-the-ground solutions. This is where we move beyond compliance towards ambition, where we exchange lessons learnt accelerate innovation, and build partnerships. I would like to encourage all participants to think about how the outcomes of this forum can be fed into your national processes, not only in the Montreal Protocol, but also into the broader frameworks such as NDCs, National Cooling Action Plans, climate strategies, and development agendas. Let us also use the outcomes of this forum to feed into some of the discussions we may have in November this year when we gather in Kigali for the 38th meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol to celebrate progress and renew our collective commitment and ambition. The Montreal Protocol has shown us what is possible. The Kigali Amendment gives us the opportunity to go further, protecting the ozone and climate, strengthening resilience, and improving lives. Let us all work together. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms. Seki. The ozone secretaries' convening and the custodian role monitoring the treaty's implementation and supporting the parties' discussions and efficiency in this successful multilateral process is precisely the kind of institutional architecture that we need more also for other processes. Thank you for your unwavering stewardship. I am now delighted to invite Ms. Tina Pili, Chief Officer of the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol.

Please. Thank you. Your Excellency, Minister of Nigeria, dear Mr. Müller, Director-General of UNITO and Deputy Director-General Mr. Zion, distinguished parties to the Montreal Protocol, members of the Executive Committee, I see a number of you today, Dear participants, colleagues, and friends, cooling has a human face, from the farmer in sub-Saharan Africa to a child in a rapidly warming city to a patient that needs to be vaccinated in a tropical country. And access to cooling is a foundation of human dignity. Without cooling, as Dr. Miller said, livelihoods are lost, productivity drops, children cannot learn,— and communities struggle. The challenge before us is to expand access to cooling in a manner that is affordable, low carbon and resilient. And this is where the Montreal Protocol and the Multilateral Fund can play a role. For over 3 decades, the Multilateral Fund, through implementing and bilateral agencies, has supported the transition to cleaner, more efficient cooling technologies. It has financed the conversion of domestic refrigeration, industrial and commercial cooling systems, residential and commercial air conditioning, transport refrigeration, foam insulation technologies across every region in the developing world. These investments represent some of the largest industrial transformations undertaken globally, supporting thousands of manufacturers hundreds of thousands of technicians, and many more end users in adopting environmentally responsible technologies without disrupting jobs, markets, livelihoods. Only for UNIDO, the funds approved since the inception of the Fund, covering all sectors, are more than $1 billion. I think you mentioned $3.5 billion in total, so approximately one third in 115 developing countries, and we are grateful for the work that UNITO has done over the years building on its comparative advantage, the linkage with industry. The Fund's long experience with CFC and then HCFC phase-out plans offers invaluable lessons for the Kigali HFC phase-down plans, especially in addressing the cooling-consuming sectors. The management of the servicing sector through technicians' training and certification, provision of proper tools to do the job right, establishing recovery, recycling, reclaim schemes, and creating regulatory frameworks that make sound servicing practices the norm—all were offered and tested by the Multilateral Fund. An in-depth build experience and knowledge will pave the way for impactful intervention as we start the implementation on the Kigali targets. Of the $4.4 billion approved today, more than half has supported cooling projects in 144 countries. Achieving sustainable cooling for the 3 billion people who will need it by the mid-century requires multiple coordinated pathways. The Multilateral Fund offers only one. Of these pathways through strategic implementation of the Kigali Amendment. Parties and the Executive Committee, our governing body, are working together in integrating energy efficiency into refrigerant conversion projects, in supporting programs that accelerate adoption of energy-efficient low-GWP technologies by end users, in ensuring life cycle refrigerant management practices. And more discussions on life cycle refrigerant will, will come along the way in the Executive Committee. We already have an operational framework on energy efficiency that guides the redesign of products for maximum efficiency while shifting HFCs to low GWP alternatives. And I would like to sincerely thank here UNIDO for guiding countries in submitting projects under the relevant funding windows. In the upcoming meeting of our Executive Committee, we will also be considering the approval of two projects with a revolving fund modality for end users, the first time in the history of the Fund. How we link the supply side, which has always been the big strength of the Multilateral Fund, with the demand side, the end users, is a very big opportunity. That we have ahead of us. However, it is important to see how we bring this together at the national level. Sustainable cooling means building robust institutional supporting setups. It means linking the national ozone units, which cannot do everything, with the energy agencies and planning ministries that shape how our cities grow, including cooperation frameworks with customs, trade, industry, workforce authorities, as well as putting in place or updating regulatory frameworks such as import-export licensing systems, procurement, MAPS certification. Dear participants, the Multilateral Fund exists precisely to bridge the gap between fast-growing cooling needs and the need to finance this transition. From fisheries to tourism, supermarkets to residential buildings, small enterprises to large industrial clusters, opportunities abound to accelerate the shift to sustainable cooling. I would like to thank UNIDO for organizing this forum where the compliance requirements under the Montreal Protocol converge with energy efficiency and industrial innovation. We look forward to capitalizing on UNIDO's strength and to seeing this convergence in the project's design and implementation through a very young and dynamic team that you have that works on the ground. And this is how— by working on the ground, this is how we will change people's lives, by offering them income and comfort through sustainable cooling with the Montreal Protocol at its core. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bumpili. The multilateral fund's track record of delivering results across more than 145 Article 5 countries and over 30 years of partnership with the implementing agencies, including UNIDO, is the backbone of everything we are celebrating and build on this week. Your leadership continues to inspire. UNIDO continues to be fully committed to the Montreal Protocol as highlighted by DG in his opening remarks. Thank you. Our final welcoming speaker is Mr. Johan Alosio, Director-General of the International Institute of Refrigeration. Mr. Alosio, please.

Thank you. UNIDO Director-General, Mr. Müller, Chief Executive of the Multilateral Fund, Mrs. Bermilly, Executive Secretary of the Ozone Secretariat, Mr. Seki, Excellency, distinguished delegates. First, thank you to UNIDO and specifically for the Climate Division for bringing us together today at this platform to accelerate addressing the global challenges and sharing solutions related to the refrigeration sector. Let me start with two simple realities. Refrigeration, or as commonly known as artificial cooling, is at the heart of major global challenges, including food security, public health, human well-being, energy security, and now it's essential to respond to rising energy demand of the digital infrastructure, all while supporting the climate action. The other reality is that we are living today in these times where multilateral cooperation is being tested. It's essential that we strengthen our solidarity and get closer together. The Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment stands as a powerful example of what can be achieved through international cooperation, demonstrating that when we are united with a shared purpose, there is no limit to what we can accomplish together. The active and sustained engagement of countries around this sector is not only important, it's indispensable. Demand for cooling is rising rapidly in many regions. It's already exceeding our capacity to respond in a sustainable way. The good news is that the technology is not the barrier. The technologies exist and they are ready to be deployed. The bottlenecks are well known: lack of non-harmonized standards, fragmented regulations, shortage of skills, lack of system thinking, limited access to finance, and at times a gap between the policymaking world and the science and technology landscape. Addressing these challenges in an integrated manner through a system thinking approach is key to accelerating sustainable and equitable access to cooling. Innovation driven by advances in science is already delivering more energy-efficient cooling solutions. Improvements in equipment designs such as oil-free compressors, variable or frequency speed drives, thermointegration, and the ability to recover and reuse energy for the combined delivery of cooling and heating at the same time are making cooling technologies more efficient and more versatile. At the same time, a greater use of renewable energy, thermal energy storage, along with clear guidance for the efficient Improved operation and maintenance of equipment is helping to strengthen these needs and gains. To fully realize these benefits, robust and harmonized energy performance standards are essential. They help guide deployment, ensure that energy efficiency gains are achieved in practice, and accelerate the transition to more sustainable cooling. Among low GWP solutions, Natural refrigerants, including CO2, ammonia, hydrocarbons, are no longer niche. They are proven, widely deployed, and scalable across many applications. From the perspective of the International Institute of Refrigeration, the only intergovernmental organization with a scientific background fully dedicated to the refrigeration sector, which brings together global scientific and technical expertise in the refrigeration sector. These solutions are already available and ready to scale, and the real question is what technology do we need for a specific application, for a specific climatic zone, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and the answer is provided by scientists and technology experts. Scientific information is essential to guide effective decision-making and ensure that solutions are both relevant and impactful. But knowledge alone, alone is not enough. We need much stronger connections between those who generate the knowledge and those who apply it. In this context, the IAR plays a key role in connecting knowledge with action, advancing refugee science in providing independent, evidence-based scientific insights translated into actionable technical guidance grounded in real-world application. This means bridging the gap between the scientific community and the policymakers in close collaboration with implementing agencies such as UNIDO, whose outstanding work on the ground is instrumental in turning policy into action. The IAR considers it essential to broaden and strengthen this collaboration across all levels of governments and sectors, including environment, but as well as energy, health, agriculture, industry, and not limited to those, reflecting the truly cross-cutting nature of cooling. Efforts should not be fragmented. They should be coordinated and aligned in adopting an inclusive approach if we want to move at the pace required. And as pirates, the IAR stands ready to further strengthen this role as an active partner, working alongside those who share the same vision and recognize the essential role of scientific evidence. We see very concrete areas where collaboration with UNIDO, but also with all partners, can make the difference. Strengthening sustainable cold chains, supporting the deployment of energy-efficient and climate-friendly cooling technologies, building capacity and sharing knowledge to accelerate the adoption of natural refrigerants, promoting technical standards, best practices, and regional cooperation, reinforcing thematic regional centers, technical standards, and best practices, and bridging the gap between science, policy, and implementation of practical real-world solutions. The objective is simple: not just to deploy the solution, but to deploy the right and feasible solution at a scale with a long-term impact. We already have much of what we need. Now what we need is speed, coordination, and clarity, and the IR stands ready to contribute to this effort, not only with knowledge, but also with action. Thank you very much, and I wish you a very productive forum.

Thank you, Ms. Arosha. The AIR's deep scientific and technical expertise on refrigeration is indispensable in a transition where getting the technology choices right is as important as getting the policies and the financing right. We look forward to the AIR's continued partnership Thank you very much. Excellencies, distinguished guests, what we have heard from each of our speakers reinforces something fundamental. This room contains both the expertise and the institutional will to continue our successful trajectory on the Montreal Protocol and build on it to address global cooling challenges. We have just heard from the heads of the world's main institutions for ozone and climate action and from two governments on the frontlines of cooling demand growth and refrigeration transition. The message is consistent: the Montreal Protocol has worked. The Kigali Amendment gives us a powerful tool for climate action, but the next step— integrating energy efficiency, expanding access to underserved communities, financing the transition for SMEs, and building circular, refrigerated economies requires us to think and act as a whole system. That is precisely what this Forum is designed to do. Over the next 3 days, we will not simply present the challenges, we will identify the levers, map the solutions, and forge the partnerships needed to act at the speed and scale the moment that demands. Now I am pleased to hand the floor to Alois, the Director of the Climate Innovation and Multiprotocol Division at UNIDO, who will moderate the introduction of the forum session. Before we proceed, I would like to invite our Master of Ceremonies, Mr. Samat, please come forward to facilitate the official group photo.

Thank you. Thank you very much, DDG. Warmly invite all the guests to please come here slowly in a disciplined manner to have a photo together, group photo with our esteemed high panelists. Thank you. First we do a group photo of the panel and then we will all have a picture together. Thank you. Can you take away the video behind and place the— take this thing behind, please. Just put a photo session. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. May we please come, come to the stage, dear guests? Come, come to the stage. Come to the stage, please. Let us have a group photo, all of us together. So some, some of us will need to stay down here and some others on the stage. Please come, come forward. Please, colleagues, please. Some of us will need to to come down here, please, so that we— Please, please come in. Sorry, we need to, to enter the space. Please come in, come in. Behind, you can stand over the stage, please. Please let us come together. Please stand behind the stage as well. Please, please move to the back, please. Keep flowing. Thank you, thank you. Especially the taller ones.

Please.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, DJ. Thank you. Thank you, DJ, and sorry to make you chant. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please take your seats, dear guests, so that we start the session. Please take your seats. Thank you.

Give them a couple of minutes.

Thanks.

Recording in progress.

Dear guests, please let us take our seats to start in a minute. Thank you.

I think so.

I'm from International City.

Dear guests, we are starting in a minute. Please take your seats, take your seats. Thank you, thank you. Please take your seats. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Excellencies, distinguished delegates, and esteemed partners. I'm delighted to once again welcome you to this cooling Forum. I'm deeply honored to moderate this scene-setting session. The message from the plenary was crystal, crystal clear. They say more than 1 billion people lack cooling that protects health, food, and productivity. Our answer to this defining systems challenge of our time cannot be isolated interventions, isolated technologies, or marginal efficiency gains. We need a shift in how we understand, design, and govern the cooling ecosystem. I'm from Africa, as you can see. There's an African proverb, especially from the south of Africa, that says, if If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. In my view, this proverb captures perfectly why we are all in this room. The challenge of sustainable cooling is too large, too complex, and progressing too fast at different speeds for any single country, any single company or any single institution to solve it on its own. At UNIDO, we embrace systems approach to address the cooling challenge. It enables us to align energy, materials, and urban design, building practices and natural ecosystems, standards and behaviors, finance, policy, and and skills. This ensures that renewables, circularity, passive design, equitable access, and climate adaptation within cooling reinforce each other. Most importantly, our systems approach helps us to deepen the impacts of our programs and projects under the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment. We are able to link ozone protection and the HFC phase-down with energy efficiency, market transformation, and inclusive and sustainable industrial development objectives. UNIDO has been part of this work for more than 30 years, supporting countries to meet their obligations, enhance competitiveness, and sustainability for the cooling sector, industries, and economies at large. This is a track record we are very much proud of. Above all, the systems approach to sustainable cooling help us to governize partnerships so that we can unlock technology and business models, innovation, mobilize finance, harmonize standards, build capacity, and de-risk investment. UNIDO's work on sustainable cooling is focused on unlocking the ingenuity and creativity of industry, entrepreneurs, and private sector so that they can accelerate the emergence, deployment, and large-scale adoption of sustainable cooling solutions at scale and pace that is commensurate with the challenge. For us to To rise the cooling challenge, we need to innovate the cooling ecosystem across policies and regulation, across technologies and business models, across financing, across human behavior, among others. This forum marks a deliberate shift in ambition. It is time to take stock, to understand what has worked, what can be improved, and what must, what must be expanded beyond compliance into something larger— transformation and creation of markets, the scaling of solutions, and enabling conditions that allow these solutions to be adopted not just by governments, but by industry, by smallholder farmers, by communities, and by people who make decisions about cooling every single day. That is the purpose of this forum. We start this session and we open with a tribute to one of multilateralism's greatest success stories, the recovery of the ozone layer. We then hear two keynote addresses that will lay the intellectual foundation for the days ahead. The first will examine the current state of global cooling demands. The second will invite us to think about cooling not only as an isolated sector, but as part of a complex, organic and interconnected system. Before our speakers take the floor, I invite you to watch a short video that traces cooling through history, from its origins to its profound role in shaping modern lives, and asks what it must become if we are to meet the demands of a warming world. This video was developed by the National Television of Austria on the occasion of INIDO's 60th anniversary. May we play the video? Thank you.

While solar radiation is fundamental to the sustenance of life on Earth, the stratospheric ozone layer serves as a critical biological shield by absorbing harmful ultraviolet B, UVB, radiation. Any depletion of this layer results in an elevation of surface UVB levels, which may lead to significant physiological damage, including an increased incidence of skin malignancies. The primary cause of ozone depletion was the use of chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, which were widely employed in refrigeration units, aerosol propellants, and air conditioning units. In 1974, Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland published groundbreaking research warning that CFCs acted as a significant source of stratospheric ozone reduction. Their work was built on the findings of James Lovelock, who during a 1971 voyage to Antarctica demonstrated that CFCs remained present in the atmosphere due to their chemical stability. In the 1920s, following several fatal accidents involving chloromethane leaks from refrigerators, the industry sought to develop safer, non-toxic alternatives. So by 1930, the first CFC, branded as Freon, was synthesized, and by 1935, refrigerators utilized R-12. The production and application of CFCs grew substantially over subsequent decades, reaching peak levels before the warnings from Molina and Rowland prompted international regulatory action. But it was not until 1987, in response to the significant seasonal depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer over Antarctica, that international diplomats convened to establish the Montreal Protocol. This landmark treaty mandated substantial reductions in the production and consumption of chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs. The Protocol is widely regarded as a highly successful model of global environmental governance, as it achieved universal ratification. The legal and structural framework for this agreement was provided by the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, which had been adopted in 1985. There might be a number of effects which are of such a nature that action by states, cooperative action by states, it will be necessary in the future. The ozone layer is a layer which covers us all, tries to protect us all, and if something is going to happen with it, it will happen to all of us. The implementation of these measures in developing countries was further supported by organizations such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, UNIDO. As the global demand for refrigeration and air conditioning continues to rise, the transition towards sustainable cooling solutions has become a critical environmental challenge. There is no single silver bullet Future developments should also focus on natural refrigerants, super-efficient air conditioners and refrigerators, alternative non-vapor compression-based technologies, passive cooling such as natural ventilation, reflective surfaces, green roofs and facades, and shading strategies that reduce the demand for cooling before it arises. Heat resilient urban planning that addresses the root causes of urban heat islands through green infrastructure, water features, and intelligent city layouts. Beyond technology, the transition requires innovative business and financing models to align economic incentives with efficiency and sustainability. In scientific and environmental policy, the mid-2060s represent the current best estimate for the full recovery of the ozone layer over Antarctica. Addressing the cooling challenge will result in a cooler planet and significantly reduce the impact of climate change. UNIDO's commitment to these initiatives remains robust and, as the organization turns 60 this year, its role as a bridge between global environmental protection and industrial development has never been more relevant.

Thank you.

Um, we are told, or we have estimated, that that video— I mean, the actual Vienna Convention was actually signed in this very specific room. So we have commissioned a sort of a research to establish whether that is fact or that is, um, I wishful thinking, but be that as it may, I think it shows that we are in a historic place at a historic moment. That film reminds us that cooling is not a luxury, but essential infrastructure for human well-being and development. With that context in mind, let us turn to our first speaker. I'm delighted to invite Mr. Michael Eisinger from the European Space Agency to take the floor. The recovery of the ozone layer is— the recovery of the ozone layer is an inspiring achievement in the history of international environmental governance, and few institutions are better placed to bear witness to that recovery than the European Space Agency, whose satellite observations have tracked it with extraordinary scientific precision over decades. Mr. Eisinger will show us the remarkable progress made and the climate core benefits that have flowed from your collective action under these two treaties. And as mentioned before, please see the speaker's brochure to find out more information about Michael and his work. Michael, over to you.

Thank you very much, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. Very honored to speak here. I like your, uh, proverb very much. We basically have come a long way, uh, at ESA as well with our partners from all the European member states and Canada and, uh, with all other space agencies in the world. Is my presentation on?

Uh, no.

This one.

Could we have the control of the slides from that end, if possible?

Just one second, please.

Thank you.

So we at the European Space Agency are monitoring global ozone continuously since 1996, where we started with the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment. We have had a number of other sensors, Schirmacher, GOM-2, A, B, and C, and now the Sentinels, the latter in cooperation with JUMETSAT and the European Commission. So that's about building the sensors who— which can measure ozone. We are also very active in putting together the time series of essential climate variables That's the unit where I'm working, the climate team, and the program is called the ESA Climate Change Initiative, CCI, and we are providing prototype datasets, processing systems, and algorithms to operational data service providers like EUMETSAT and the Commission's climate change service to support decision-making an informant under the police action. And on the right, I think it's not running, but that was an animation showing basically the whole time series until today established by the CCI. Next slide, please. Well, there should have been— several steps. This is the final stage of the slide, but I try to guide you through anyway, although it's now half covered. So on the left, you have a time series of annual mean total ozone between 60 south and 60 north, and you can basically see a decrease until about the mid-'90s and then a slower increase, and that is the start of the recovery of the ozone layer. This is not easy to show this way because you have to do a lot of statistics because the ozone layer also is very much determined by atmospheric dynamics. But if you remove all the dynamics terms, you get basically the trend which is dominated by the increase in CFC concentrations in the atmosphere. On the right side, you have the trend from 1997 to 1995 as a function of the latitude, basically negative, and then you can see we have a positive— small positive trend from 1996 to 2020. Next slide, please. It's a shame, but yeah, so on the left you can see a bit more detail now for two different height layers. So the top plot is the upper stratosphere, and that's where we can see most of the beginning recovery of the ozone layer. That's the area where ozone is determined just by gas phase chemistry. So that's the classical stuff which was proposed in the early 1970s by Molina and Rowland. And in the lower plot, you can see in the lower stratosphere, which is where most of the ozone resides, we don't have increase yet, but the decrease has been halted, and that's as important. On the right side, you see the situation for the ozone hole, from a recent publication. So you have in the middle the ozone hole area, which has increased until slightly after 2000 and is now slightly getting smaller. And on the right, you have the minimum ozone, which also is now slightly recovering. The statement on the bottom summarizes basically the success of the Montreal Protocols in avoiding skin cancer cases, and that's an estimation that by the end of the century more than 250 million of cases of skin cancer and almost 50 million cases of cataracts will have been averted. And the skin cancer cases apparently correspond to about 2 million deaths avoided Next slide, please. Yeah, so what you can see underneath is basically the trends in CFCs, which are now slightly going down since the mid-'90s as a result of the regulations and phase-out in the ozone protocol.— then there would have been a plot showing also the HCFCs to reach their maximum. They have now reached their peak and are stabilizing, not yet going down but stabilizing. And on the right you have the emissions on the top of all relevant halogens. Then you have the concentrations in the atmosphere, which are of course decreasing much, much slower because of the long lifetimes, 50 years for CFC-11, 100 years for CFC-12. And on the bottom you have the impact on the ozone. So again, 60 south to 60 north, the measurements you have seen before, but now also with the projection, which for the for three different scenarios basically depending on how much greenhouse gases and particularly CO2 are emitted. So if you look at the middle scenario, you see basically a recovery by the middle of the century and for the ozone hole, the recovery as was said before about 2065. Next slide. The Montreal Protocol has an enormous benefit for the climate as well, and that was already foreseen in the preamble of the protocol. I don't know whether you can read it, but it's basically talking about the climatic effects of these gases, and the reason is that halogens have a strong greenhouse effect as well. It's the yellow blob in the plot on the bottom left. It is estimated that in 2019, halogens contributed between 12% and 18% to the total anthropogenic effective forcing. It's almost as much as methane, or if you put it in another perspective, it's more than the total CO2 emissions of— historic CO2 emissions of China. At this stage, so that is not negligible. And now we can think about what would have happened without the Montreal Protocol. So these are model simulations which model which world we have avoided, and of course there are large uncertainties because they are hypothetical scenarios, but it can be said that in 2019 the radiative forcing due to the halogens would have probably been twice as high. So we are talking more than— we are talking about 30% maybe of the total forcing, and that's then even more in comparison to the historic CO2 forcing of the United States, which is the largest contribution. So It is estimated that the Montreal Protocol avoided 2.5 Kelvin— that is a lot of warming— by the end of the century, of which 1.7 are just due to the radiative forcing of these halogens acting as greenhouse gases, but also 0.8 Kelvin due to the UV damage to plants because otherwise the ozone layer would have been depleted, plants would have been damaged and could have absorbed less CO2 and so there would have been even more CO2 in the atmosphere. So the— it is estimated that the warming saved in equivalent CO2 emission per year is much larger than that which was targeted by the Kyoto Protocol. So very, very successful Montreal Protocol. Next, please. I have been asked by the organizers to say a word about what the role space-based measurements could have for monitoring HFCs. So you have on the top left ground-based measurements from various ground stations coordinated by NOAA of HFC-134a, which is the most important one and the one with the highest concentration in the atmosphere, which has a greenhouse warming potential over 100 years of 1,500, meaning 1,500 times stronger than CO2, and a still relatively long lifetime of 14 years. These measurements are are very precise, but they are sparse. There are few stations in the world, so it would be nice to have satellite measurements as well. And indeed there is one satellite sensor in existence, and it's still measuring, which is the Canadian ASFTS satellite, and that operates since 2003. So in terms of satellites, it's very, very old, and we don't know how long we will still have it. But you have two plots on the right. On the top you see that the satellite has the advantage that it can give a height profile of the substances, so you can basically get better modeling of the effect on the ozone layer. You see from left to right, basically each line is one year, so it's a dramatic increase. I think— I can't read the numbers, starting around 2000 to the— close to today. So that's the increase in HFC. And on the bottom, you have the satellite time series overlaid with the ground-based time series showing very good agreement. So there is— satellite measurements are inherently less precise, but they are still very good for monitoring trends. It should be said that NASA has also planned a mission mission in 2030 which will measure at least CFC-11 and 12, which are still relevant to be monitored for compliance. But as far as I could figure out, it's not capable— or it's at least not the primary target to measure HFCs. And at ESA, we currently don't have plans for an HFC-capable mission. So there is a potential observation gap on HFCs.

Next.

And that's already my final slide. So I have shown the remarkable success story of the Montreal Protocol, which is a double success. The first one is to halt the decline of ozone, and we see now a beginning of the ozone recovery. Due to the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. Return to 1980 ozone levels is expected by the middle of the century and about 1 to 2 decades later for Antarctica. And the second success is a significant additional contribution to global warming has been avoided by the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances so far, and this needs, of course, must be continued and monitored for any climate-relevant replacement substances such as the HFCs, which are still in— which concentrations are still increasing currently in the atmosphere. Space-based monitoring is not only a scientific tool, but it's a transparency and accountability mechanism for the international community.— and it's used more and more like that. And this is also reflected in our recently updated Earth Observation Science Strategy, where it is said that we will deliver high-quality, validated, trusted, and actionable information products related to national, international, and global policy frameworks. And the Montreal Treaty is specifically is specifically mentioned in our science strategy, so we will continue supporting monitoring ozone and monitoring the relevant greenhouse gases. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Michael, and for grounding us in evidence. This is not a matter of political faith— I mean, political narrative or faith. But it is data visible from space and a story of what is possible. We will now move to our first keynote address that is going to examine the current state of global cooling demand and what it means for the road ahead. Our next keynote is delivered by Mrs. Rhodiga Kosla, the Associate Professor of University of Oxford, one of the foremost researchers on the nexus of cooling, energy access, in sustainable development. Her work, including on the two UNEP Cooling Watch reports, has been helping policymakers and international community to understand the scale, distribution, and urgency of global cooling demand. Professor Koesler has shared with us a prerecorded message. Let's play it. Thank you.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Radhika Khosla, and I'm delighted to be able to speak with you today at UNIDO Sustainable Cooling Forum. What I'd like to do in the next 10 minutes or so is to speak a little bit about the global state of play on the science of what we know and understand about cooling, sustainable cooling, and extreme heat. Now, to begin with, I think it's important to recognize that extreme heat and cooling energy have actually been a blind spot in our sustainability debates. We did some work early on where we looked across the 17 SDGs and the 169 targets of the United Nations, and what we found were that the words cool, cooling, heat, thermal refrigeration, they actually do not appear even once. So this really has been an issue that has been under the radar, even though it is central to be able to achieve any of the 17 SDGs. And the thing that's really stark actually about extreme heat, as I'm sure all of you know, is that of all extreme weather events, extreme heat is the one that kills the most. Now, we have a number of studies that are beginning to show us just just how dramatic this issue is. 75% of the global population is at risk from extreme heat stress, and this is both prolonged and extreme heat. The ILO has a study that tells us about, that about 70% of workers face annual high heat stress causing injuries and deaths annually. And if you look at this figure on the right-hand side, I find it really striking because what it tells us is that by the end of the century, the energy demand from air conditioning alone is going to be much higher than that from heating globally. And this is important because our energy discourse has for so long been focused on how we can provide heating in colder climates. But what we see is that as the century turns, this actually reverses, and it is air conditioning alone which is going to take much more of global energy demand than heating, just stressing, you know, where we are on the S-curve, which is very early on, and the direction that we're headed in. The other thing that is striking about this is that despite this very large growth in air conditioning, which is the response to extreme heat and the sort of cooling demand that's going to come as an outcome of that, is that inequity is embedded in it. So by mid-century, 2 to 5 billion people will lack access to an air conditioner. And so, you know, we have this situation where you have very high rising air conditioning demand as heat rises and as cooling demand rises. But within that entrenched inequities where so many billions of people will actually not have access to the cooling that they need. We already know that currently, or in 2022, global cooling required 20% of global electricity use. And what that means is that actually this is an issue that is not just important in its own sake, but it's actually one that is also critical for the role of emissions reductions globally, which we know do the heavy lifting if we are to achieve any kind of global net-zero target. Now, as we think about rising cooling demand, I want to draw from a couple of studies that we've been doing here at Oxford. One of them looks at the relative change in cooling demand using cooling degree days as we move from global mean temperatures from 1.5 degrees to 2 degrees. And when we look at this change in cooling demand as global mean temperatures rise, we see that in terms of absolute change, the countries which will see the largest increase in cooling demand all lie in Africa, and you can see that from this map. Over here. We then asked, what about relative change? Because relative change actually gives us a sense of preparedness and how ready countries actually are to be able to respond to this increase in cooling demand that we're going to see. And when we looked at that on a relative basis, the figure actually looks like this. And, and what that tells us is that it— the top 10 countries that are least prepared in some sense for the increase in cooling demand that are that they're going to face all lie in Europe. So it's Ireland, Switzerland, the UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden. These are the countries that show up, and many others in the Global North, as the ones that will see the largest relative change, really pointing to the fact that the issue of providing sustainable cooling is really not just one that belongs in the tropics or to developing countries. It really is a global issue. Issue and requires us to be able to deal with it at a systemic level in countries around the world. Now, another study that we recently released is a new global dataset of heating and cooling degree days. And what's really key about one of the results from this is that, as you can see from the figure over here, we look at the increase in cooling degree days as the global mean temperature rises from 1 to 1.5 degrees, and then from 1.5 to 2 degrees. And what is, you know, sort of crucial about the way that this curve looks is that the most significant shifts in cooling degree days and adaptation needs emerge early on. So this actually underscores the fact that when we move from 1 to 1.5 degrees, in global warming levels, we see the largest increase in cooling degree days, which means that we really need to act upfront. We need to act fast and we need to undertake accelerated adaptation as an urgent matter now, as we are slowly creeping up to 1.5 degrees. Another piece of work from the study itself shows us that when we look at the middle-of-the-road shared socioeconomic pathways, which is basically kind of, you know, business as usual, we see that the populations experiencing extreme heat are going to double when we hit the 2 degrees threshold. So from 23% of 1.54 billion people experiencing extreme heat in 2010, we, we see this number rise to about 41% or 3.79 billion people by mid-century. The countries with the largest affected populations are in India, in Nigeria, in Indonesia, in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Philippines, really pointing again to the regions that will require the most adaptation needs. But like I was saying earlier, this is not just a problem that belongs to one part of the world because they're deeply entrenched inequities globally as we try to tackle this issue. So what can we do about this and how do we really move the system towards one where we can provide cooling for everybody, but do this at a cost that does not damage the environment. And really what we're looking at then is can we achieve the goal of near-zero greenhouse gas emissions from cooling by mid-century? Because if we are able to do that, then actually we're in a world where there is thermal comfort for everybody because we're providing this at a cost that is not one to increasing greenhouse gas emissions and damaging the environment. So this is the work that we did for the Global Cooling Watch report by UNEP, which I'm a lead author for. And let me walk you through this waterfall diagram. So what you see over here is that, you know, from our 2022 emissions on the left-hand side from cooling, you have a growth that comes from business as usual growth in the economy. Then you have an additional growth that comes in cooling emissions because of the increase in extreme heat. That is an impact of increased climate change. And then you have a further increase in cooling emissions if we were to actually provide access to cooling for everybody, which we know is fundamental if we are committed to the quest of justice and of making sure that sustainable cooling belongs to everybody and not just a few. Now, if we were to stay without any kind of cooling measures, we would then be looking at about 10 billion tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually by mid-century, which is a very large number. What we do know is that we already have a set of initiatives and policies that are in place to help bring cooling emissions down. And the two most significant ones that are in place over here are first the Kigali compliance, which is just the adherence to the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment, which most countries have signed up to, which really help us bring refrigerant gases from cooling down. And the second is energy efficiency improvements in cooling technologies, particularly in air conditioners, which again are really key in helping us bring cooling emissions down. Emissions down. And if we just follow these business as usual pathways, we're in a world where we come down to about 7.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent cooling emissions globally. Now, what can we do from here? And there are actually 4 pathways and 4 different areas which we— if we focused on, can really help make a huge dent in the system. Now, what are these? The first and really key one is passive cooling, which is how can we provide cooling in a manner that is not energy intensive but instead relies on what are very well-known mechanisms of providing thermal comfort, such as shading, ventilation, insulation, use— the use of courtyards and urban planning, the use of green spaces, the use of water bodies, the whole range of passive cooling solutions that have existed for a long time and that are prevalent in many parts of the world as a way to actually shape our built environment and our urban spaces and rural spaces for that matter. The second is to be able to invest in low-energy cooling. And this sustainable cooling hierarchy is actually very important because what it requires is for us to say that our first port of call will not be air conditioners, but rather it will be low-energy cooling such as that provided by fans or by evaporative coolers. The third pathway is to say that all the technologies for cooling that are in the system, particularly air conditioners, but even fans and others, have the best energy efficiency systems in place. So actually, we are only operating those technologies which are at the highest energy efficiency, and there is a minimum energy efficiency performance standard that is put in place and regularly updated across countries on an ongoing basis. And then finally, to really phase down refrigerant gases actually at a pace that could be even faster than the Kigali Amendment, because that takes care of the refrigerant gases. And if we do those four things, we actually are able to get cooling emissions down dramatically. About 66% or 67% of these emissions are then brought down. And then that final piece, that final third or so, can be brought down to near zero cooling emissions if we decarbonize the grid. And I often say that that's actually, you know, it's one of the gifts of cooling is that it relies on electricity. And so we do have a pathway by which we can bring these cooling emissions down to zero. And we can do that by providing access to thermal comfort and of cooling to everybody. So I will stop there. And this sets the stage for the rest of the discussions that we're going to have today. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I think the picture that Professor Kossler has drawn of rapidly rising cooling demand and the billions of people still without access to safe and affordable cooling, and of the critical decisions that we must make now to shape the trajectory of this sector. The last presentation on this session is from Dr. Stefan Lorrey. He's going to invite us to consider not only the scale of this challenge, but the framework of thinking that we must bring to it. Stefan is with IASA, International Institute of Systems Applied Analysis, who are also the technical partner of this event. IASA's cross-disciplinary research has long shaped global thinking on climate, energy, and sustainability, and Stefan brings that tradition of systems-level inquiry directly to the challenge of cooling. Stefan, over to you. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you so much. This is really a run-through through some work that we've done with Aloïs Liassat and my colleagues at Bayer, Alessio Mastrucci and Palaf Pourouit, over the last months to think about a systems thinking perspective on sustainable cooling. And I'm very glad that Mrs. Allouche already said that there is a lack of systems thinking in cooling this morning. So we're trying to bring some enlightenment into this. Director Müller opened this by saying we have a cooling paradox, and I may controversially bring this even further, saying we may have a double bind. A double bind is something that a big systems thinker called Gregory Bateson introduced, saying you have two objectives to fulfill, but they contradict each other. You have to fulfill both, but you object to yourself. So, and this can be framed a bit like cooling. You have a climate adaptation component where we've heard from Mr. Suleyman, Mr. Laval, and many others, that is absolutely essential for human well-being, particularly in climate change, to have access to cold chains, to refrigeration, and to air conditioning or cool spaces. So that's a prerequisite for human well-being. Climate mitigation really demands that emissions related to cooling are reduced. And we, in science, we look at something called the planetary boundaries, which essentially say that we're on the track to making the planet Earth uninhabitable for humans if we continue like this. So this is really not something that we just think as a side effect of cooling. We introduce a third framework for here, which is called the sufficiency-efficiency-consistency framework, which tries to comprise both sides and open up and sort of solve this double bind by balancing sufficient cooling, efficient implementation, and consistent delivery of cooling. So now this was really jumping into it. Let's step back a bit and ask, what is systems thinking actually about? One very famous quote says, "A system is more than the sum of its parts." And I've put down 6 words here to say what is actually systems thinking. There are many more laws and tools, but a very important one is boundaries. If you analyze anything, you have to think about what's inside, what's your objective analysis, what's outside. We look at connections. That's really the core of systems thinking. Many elements in a system are interconnected and these relationships matter. So don't only look at the elements, look at the relationships. Delays and timings. It's something that have come up in the video and I'll talk about this in a minute. CFCs were only— were invented in the 1920s and '30s and so only in the '60s and '70s it was realized there's a problem problem. You have a huge delay, and very often systems properties can only be explained with timings and delays. Feedback means you do one thing, it reinforces some other element in your system that is connected, that will reinforce something that you look at. Feedbacks, they can be reinforcing, they can be balancing, but very important. Emergence, something fascinating. You add something to your system and something else happens that you didn't foresee. And You probably know that the first Singaporean Prime Minister said that one of the preconditions for Singapore to thrive was air conditioning. Without the invention of air conditioning, a lot of thriving economies in hot, humid climates would not exist. But probably the person inventing the compressor wouldn't have thought about this. And then the most important thing maybe, and the most complex in this one, is bounded rationality. It means that most decisions are made by individual realities and perceptions, not the whole system view. This means if you take a decision, if your organization takes a decision, you have a certain set of interests and realities. It's like that elephant where you only see the trunk or you only see the leg, but you take these decisions not having the whole system in mind. So now we continue and looking at with these principles into what's the system. We first sat down and said, well, what is actually the sustainable cooling system? What's inside the system? What's outside what's inside the system. And I'm very happy for you to challenge me on this in the coffee break because I'm sure you will have different idea of what's inside and what's outside the system. It really matters. And here we take quite a wide view. So we say, for instance, we actually have to think of climate change, even though many elements of climate change are not really so much connected to cooling, but some are. Refrigerants are very certainly inside the cooling system because this is what refrigerants are there for. So now I said challenged me on this and I actually come up with two different suggestions. One of them is a much narrower boundary where we say, well, if you actually also want to analyze cooling and you may be coming from a very technical perspective, your organization may be concerned with a few on cooling devices or technologies, and then maybe it makes sense to only look at the sort of the mechanical aspects of cooling and the air conditioning devices. But we're really meeting here not to talk about cooling, but to talk about human well-being. And so if you take a very wide view, you say actually the SDGs matter a lot. We're not cooling for the purpose of cooling, we're cooling for the purpose of delivering medication, of having safe food, thermal comfort, human well-being. And so actually it's very important to widen your view as well and not forget these elements. In systems thinking, there's also something we call a analysis paralysis. So if you always try to take all these SDGs into account with everything you do, you probably won't get anywhere. So this is why it's important to think about the boundary and maybe be flexible in adapting the boundary depending on your task. So now one very specific example about feedback loops, and we've heard this before from other speakers. What we look here is urban and ambient urban temperature, and what I'm showing you here is a— a very classical tool of systems thinking, which is causal loop diagrams. So what we're saying is that if you're interested in your urban ambient temperature and from an individual decision you're bounded by the reality that your bedroom is very hot at night and so you buy an air conditioning, but we know from science that this raises the outdoor temperature in the street for everyone else, tipping other people into buying air conditioning, so you actually make the problem worse. If you have a smart a policymaker and an effective urban administration, you may be able to design your city in a way that the outdoor temperature may decrease a little bit. We know it's not enough to counteract all of climate change, but it can do a little bit job so that maybe fewer people buy air conditioning. And on the left-hand side, you have what we call a balancing feedback loop to offset this problem a little bit. I talked about emergence, and this is really something where the video was much nicer user to say that in the 1920s there was this big problem of toxic refrigerants. And so people came up with this wonderful solution called CFCs. They were— I heard the names called Freon. But because you have a timeline, you have temporal delay. Only decades later we realized there's a problem. And for this reason there are ODS banks. So without the path dependence going from toxic refrigerants to CFCs CFCs, where only later we realized there's a problem. Now we realize there's a greenhouse gas problem with HFCs, and now there may be other coolants which have a PFS problem, but you're already locked into this technology because you spend time to build up industries, buy devices, and these things are around. We— probably most of you are familiar with trade-offs when you choose a refrigerant. Not going too much into detail, but saying there's probably an element missing, but I don't know which one, and probably very few or no one here knows why, because we may only find out in 5 or 10 years' time or 20 years' time that there is a problem with a new introduction. That's not a critique of new technology. I'm an engineer myself, and I think technology can help solve us, but we also have to keep in mind that new additions to a system can bring unwanted properties that we're not aware of yet. And what we're doing to the end to wrap this up is we make this a little bit more complicated. Again, if you have questions and details, approach me on this. But one approach here is to visualize everything that has already been— not everything that has been said, but essentially all the elements that are displayed have already been mentioned by most of the speakers. So when we're looking at cooling demand, we know cooling demand drives mechanical cooling to the bottom. There's refrigerant production, there's leakage, there is end-of-life issues with refrigerants which causes direct emissions driving climate change. There's also indirect emissions on the other side driving climate change, the electricity systems, and then climate change again will drive cooling demand. Human well-being also will drive cooling demand. So these things are interconnected, and omission is on purpose. You can say that there are many more things part of the system, which is true, but I wouldn't be able to fit all of them on one slide. So you kind of need to find that level of abstraction, and this is something that we try to find in this report. How can we visualize these interconnections without overwhelming the reader? Now, if you look at the drivers that we have there, we're saying that we determined the main drivers of this cooling are well-being and needs with all their elements, including food and medical applications, affordability and availability of the technology, but also climatic conditions. So the weather, the temperature you have obviously matters a lot. Now, what's the takeaway of all this? Policy-making and technology are all very, very important to change that system. So what we conclude is there are 4 enablers that we bring up, which is policy, which is really where United Nations organizations and other organizations are at the core of steering this. There's also the human capacity, technological capacity, and institutional capacity very important. You need money for implementation of all this and you need technological solutions. So with all this you can try and govern the system. And now going back to systems thinking, there is a big systems thinker called Ashby and he has Ashby's theory which says that effective governance of a complex complex system needs to mirror the complexity of that governance. So if you know that you have a cooling system and there are certain time lags, there are certain— a number of elements, there are connections, your governance system of this needs to mirror that complexity in the cooling system. Now, this is quite academic and theoretical, and I think I leave it up to the afternoon sessions to talk about the enablers in particular.

Thank you so much, Stefan. And system thinking is not merely an academic framework. In our view, it is a practical approach for anybody charged with designing policy, designing Finance or Industrial Development Transformation at Scale. We will carry this lens with us through the remainder of this program. Dear colleagues and participants, I hope this session has laid a solid foundation for the deliberations ahead. I want to appreciate my team that has worked so hard to bring this forum together, and I'm grateful for your engagement. We'll proceed immediately with the next session to discuss policy dimensions of sustainable cooling. In the afternoon, we will then turn to technology, covering both mainstream and alternative cooling solutions, then financing mechanisms for demand-side management of cooling for the adoption of such technology technologies at scale. There's still so much to discuss. I look forward to every conversation. I'm very much looking forward to direct engagement with each one of you, and I thank you so much. I hand over to Master Serembe.

Thank you. Thank you, Director Mlanga. Thank you to all the speakers. Before we move on with the next session, I would like to make some housekeeping remarks. On interpretation, due to interpretation constraints, we will have only French and Russian running for 3-hour blocks. If we move beyond that, we will apologize to you in advance. They will need to close the booths, our colleagues at the interpretation booths. Regarding the day ahead, on the third day, it will be similar situation. It may extend the morning session until beyond noon, so please take notice of that. Now, on the VIC where we stay here, the cafeteria, when we'll go for lunch later on, accepts credit and debit cards. If you need to pay in cash, there is one counter only, so you'll need to please ask the staff there where the cash counter is so you don't lose time waiting in the queue at the lunch in the cafeteria. As you know already, smoking is not permitted in this building, but there are designated areas where you can go and smoke if you wish to. And finally, if you happen to lose your badge, please do let us know immediately. Thank you. Now, without further ado, Now I'd like to pass on to the next session and introduce the policy and regulatory toolkits that will be available to governments to shape markets for sustainable cooling, from the European Union's climate legislation to Mexico's National Cooling Action Plans, to Turkey's integrated MLF planning. This session is about the levers that public administrators can pull. I will pass it on to our colleague, Miss Elena Miceva. Please, the floor is yours. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the next session on enabling policies and regulatory frameworks for sustainable cooling. As Gentian introduced me already, my name is Elena Mitrova and I will be moderating this session here today with you. The central premise of this session is that coordinated policies are the driving force behind sustainable cooling. Markets exist, technology exists, but without well-designed, coherent, and enforced policy frameworks, the transition to sustainable cooling can be slow, fragmented, and at risk of costly lock-ins. This session will show that sustainable cooling sits at the intersection of key policy agendas: the Montreal Protocol and its Kigali Amendment, climate, industrial development, energy efficiency, waste management, and urban planning. Getting these to speak to each other is not a luxury, it is a necessity. So today, here with me, I have the honor to have 4 speakers. One is online. I'll start with my colleague, Mr. Fernando Santiago, Industrial Policy Officer from UNIDO. Next to him is Mr. Mehrali Ercar, Deputy Director of the Climate Change Department in Turkey's Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Urbanization. We have online with us Ms. Agnieszka Truszczynska, Policy Officer from European Commission DG CLIMA, and Mr. Sergio Merino, National Ozone Officer from Mexico. Our speakers today will present a toolkit of policy options from refrigerant phase-out strategy, policy, industrial policy designs, European Union regulatory frameworks, and national cooling action plans. By the end of this session, I hope I hope we will all leave with a shared understanding that sustainable cooling is multi-sector and multi-benefit area, and the policy architecture we design today will determine the speed of transition that we all need. And with this, I now hand over to my colleague Mr. Fernando Santiago, who will explain to us the UNIDO approach to shaping markets through policy. Policies. Mr. Santiago, you have the floor.

Thank you. Thank you, Elena. I finished on—

Try now.

Yes, it's on. Okay. Well, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, good morning. Thank you very much for the invitation for participating in this session. I think it's a very pertinent session on policy. I will center my comments on a sort of framework. It's really more about policy, and then my fellow panelists, as Helena mentioned, they will dig deeper into the topic of sustainable cooling. Just to start with, I mean, if we say about how markets— how public policy shapes markets, we are recognizing implicitly that governments play a major role in driving development, in driving prosperity. But we also need to understand the mechanisms and perhaps also the problems that this entails. Governments, of course, take risks. They help in addressing some of the problems that maybe investors would face so that they have more incentive to invest, to create jobs, to invest in innovation. We have seen an evolution of changes in the way we understand government. From governments that play a role in development, governments that play a role as entrepreneurs, and now increasingly we see governments as environmental builders, environmental states, and that means some of the issues that you're raising here are going to be relevant. So 3 messages from my talk today: one is, if you If we want to achieve sustainable development, we need to think of policies, but also the policy capacities. So what are the kinds of technical expertise, interagency coordination, and evidence-based decision-making that are relevant for policy? We also need to talk about public policies that shape both supply and demand. People here are talking about systems, and this implies a systemic view and interactions of these elements. And third, I think it's so important to also think of how sustainable cooling becomes a driver or potential driver for industrialization in developing countries, not only using that but also becoming a driver for development for these countries. So we talk about a lot about industrial policy recently, yeah, and traditionally the view of the of industrial policy was that it is to help economies transform the structure of the economy from low productivity into higher productivity, diversified exports and that. But now we see an evolution of the term. We also see that those aspirations of industrial— the technical change or economic transformation are there, but now we also expect industrial policy to do— to have a contribution into environmental sustainability and social inclusion, and that's in the spirit of the SDGs. We have to balance between economic, environmental, and social outcomes. That means, in a Schumpeterian sense— allow me to be a bit academic here— the path towards sustainability requires a balanced mix between incentives of regulations, so carrots and sticks, but also an understanding of the ability of public policy to support creative destruction, creating in the sense of looking for new industries, new ways of producing things, while going away from traditional technologies or technologies that we consider environmentally not acceptable. And so in that sense means governments need to be aware of the need to build compet— capabilities of firms, institutions workers, but also governments themselves. Improved coordination is needed across actors to ensure the transition within the systems that we want to test, but these capabilities are changing and necessarily limited in certain countries. So that's where UNIDO comes into play in terms of how do we see policy. Policy for us means understanding that A persistent barrier to sustainable development is the lack of policy capacities in developing countries, particularly those related to dealing with evidence, acting on evidence. People have been talking about data, and we saw those in the presentations earlier. So many times governments rely on outsourcing the experience or outsourcing the work, which has a benefit of maybe ticking the box, getting something done, but also has the downside downside of creating a loss of maybe ownership and also undermining the long-term capability and learning that policymaking implies. And so for us in UNIDO, we see industrial policy advisory services as an approach that implies an emphasis on building national capabilities, not only in terms of production and use of technologies or production activities,, but also grounding advice on evidence, ensuring alignment with the SDGs, as I said, the aligning of multiple development outcomes, and supporting stakeholder participation. So, but how does it work in practice? So if you think of public policy, there is a need to understand that, you know, this public policy shapes markets through supply and supply and demand side actions, and that is essential to see this as a systemic— a system— integrated system. So if you support, for example, supply through innovation and the creation of new industries, new technologies, this creates also new products and goods and services, but also you need to stimulate competition. There's a selection mechanism there. Only those products that are superior or technologies that are superior are going to be remaining in the market, so that's also implying giving some ownership to the consumers, the demand side that is going to be the selection mechanism in the market, yeah. And so in this case, again, capabilities matter. So firms need technological capabilities to absorb technologies, also to develop new technologies. Consumers need the ability to make informed choices. And governments need strong policymaking capacities to guide the process effectively, yeah. And so this— in a process of capabilities changing throughout time. And so if I can be a little bit more explicit on how we think governments or public policy shapes market, so there are two key dimensions here. The one is— I mean, and also implying the supply-side interaction here. So the first dimension is, again, the setting framework conditions. That allow industries to develop, firms to thrive. So in this case, we can identify three major roles. One of the government's roles is facilitating industrial upgrading, addressing market failures through fiscal incentives, credit, export promotion, and other tools. But also the government can be a partner in technological capability building, promoting adoption of new technologies,, for example, sustainable cooling technologies and more efficient, energy-efficient technologies in the production process. An important aspect here is serving as market antenna, which means the governments can have a major role in scanning the environment, scanning for opportunities that emerge in terms of markets, technologies, and that information or intelligence is passed on to the companies so that they are ready to act and determine investments. A second dimension which implies also a bit more active role means guiding the economy into specific directions, and there are different ways in which governments can do this. One of them is generating innovation or co-generating innovation through stimulating demand for new technologies. For example, if you want to support sustainable cooling technologies, the government can support, say, programmes, acquisition of these technologies by firms. A second role is again similar to what we said in Antena, but is now targeting consumers and providing information and awareness raising about the benefits of certain technologies or the potential problems for additional technologies, so communication campaigns, national branding, dietary labels, those are areas or actions that help shape consumer sentiment and consumer demand, right? A third area is when governments play a role as regulators, and here we talk about regulation. Regulation can be targeting relative prices, so making a technology cheaper compared to the one that is less efficient, yeah, but maybe that provides incentives for more companies to adopt of the technologies, but also can be through setting standards and providing some mandatory regulations that companies then feel incentivized to move into technologies that are more efficient in terms of technology, energy use, or providing more efficient processes. And finally, governments can also— forget the role of government as a consumer through public procurement, for example.. And public procurement is very important here because it creates a demand, creates an opportunity for companies to test technologies, maybe have a first buyer and go over the risk of the market, but also can be a very important driver in terms of industrialization. So just very briefly, because I am conscious of the time, if you see public procurement here, I mean, there's a Usually we see public procurement as a linear process where the government specifies a need, identifies a need, and identifies a product that addresses the need, runs a tender with all the technical specifications, then the suppliers provide the bidding, the government selects them, grants contract, and that's it. If we want to move forward in sort of more dynamic use, strategic use of public procurement, procurement, we also start thinking on how to connect procurement to innovation, for example. And in this case, rather than design a product, we can look for a solution, which means there is an interaction between the government and the possible suppliers in terms of understanding how that solution looks like. It's the technology, is it a process, is it even a way to construct houses differently? We are seeing here different elements. Although this transform the procurement process from one of purchasing a product or a service into something that purchases a function and that also incentivises the need for new capacities and new technologies. So just to close my intervention, we see a revival of interest in industrial policy, but also see the policy is more open for countries, is accepted by countries using the approach to industrial policy as something that is legitimate to achieve their goals, but not all countries are ready to engage in the same level, so we need to understand different capabilities and different starting points. So even though we understand public policy as something that addresses supply and demand, then the possibilities of using these kind of policies for industrial are not evenly distributed. And so we need to think of market structures, history, consumer behaviours, institutional capacities, and of course timing and sequencing of different interventions, and also a portfolio approach, so policy mixes. Above all, we need strong public institutions, well-trained policymakers, and coherent long-term strategies. And I think this is a role for UNIDO and other entities to facilitate access to the learning, to the forums like this to inform policy, but also more hands-on interventions in terms of creating the knowledge bases for decision-making. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Santiago. You have given us the academic backbone of this session, and that is that governments are not passive referees, they are active shapers actors of the market with their demand and supply-oriented policy measures. And it was really interesting to hear about the public— strategic public procurement as an innovation policy tool. And under our Montreal Protocol project, some of the countries have piloted the development of so-called green procurement policies. And with that, now we will move to our next Speaker: Mr. Merali Eçar from Turkey, who will present us Turkey's case of early phase-out of the HCFCs 5 years ahead of schedule, and now they are navigating the HFC phase-down. Mr. Eçar, you have the floor, please.

Thank you, Helena. Hello, everyone. On behalf of the Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, I would like to thank the UNIDO for organizing this important forum. Before making presentation, I invite all you to Antalya that will be held Conference of Parties on Climate Change between 9th and 20th November this year under the UNFCCC. Turn on to our presentation. I will be sharing Turkey's journey throughout the HCFC phase-out. The process began in 1991. When Turkey joined the Montreal Protocol and processed it over time. The major milestone was the 2008 ODS regulation, which introduced licensing quotas and clear phase-out schedule. This exec— and then we went to HCFC-22 in rack equipment production. This exception ended in 2025, marking the full phase-out of HCFCs. Regarding HFCs, firstly, in 2018, we published the EFCAS regulation after ratifying Kigali Amendment. We republished new FCAS regulation, which aligned to EU regulation. And now the new FCAS regulation and JFC quota allocation system is ongoing, ongoing. And lastly, we have adopted Climate Globe including EFCAS regulation. You can see, figure out, so phase out HCFC and even import of service use was prohibited as 2025 except for mandatory use laboratory and unethical and critical use. Turkey successfully phased out HCFC by 2025, 5 years ahead of the Montreal Protocol schedule. At the same time, a smooth transition to alternative refrigerants, HFCs, was ensured. And now we are focused on HFC phase-out. We are Looking ahead to future HFCs, according to commitments, you can see our target is 80% HFC emission reduction by 2045. The question is how could we do phase-out HCFCs in this March. Before I said figure out, phase out HCFCs, HCFC story is totally finished in our country. HCFC Phase-Out Management Plan, HPMG, funded by MLF and implemented with UNIDO was completed successfully. I would like to share some good practice to HPMG. You can see— figure out significant HCFC reduction achieved and 9 companies supported in the foam sector. Some practices under the HPMP project, the Emission Reduction Good Practice Program, under the HPMP project, equipment was provided. 25 vocational schools across different provinces. They include— this includes gas identifiers, recovery units, cylinders, and nutrition kits supporting practical skills and environmental awareness. Overall, these efforts strengthened the technical capacity of support to effective policy implementation. Now training program is continuing and we will provide laboratory equipment for 28 universities, cooling department of university in Turkey. The third one is demonstration. Demonstration is very important under the HPMP project. For example, you can see in Ankara, there is a soda factory. We was implemented chiller application for our 400,000 liters 34A was replaced with alternative one. The another one is RRR installation. 3 RRR facilities established in our country under the ODS and FCAS legislation, the refrigerant recovery And reclamation is mandatory according to our regulation. These centers not operational, not yet, but work is ongoing on regulatory and licensing framework is going on. For destruction, this license facilities already exist in Turkey. Overall, this approach supports for both waste management and emission reduction. The last one is we organized custom training and capacity building activities. In this context, we organized trainings for custom officers to strengthen identification and enforcement capacity. Overall, these efforts strengthen border control and ensure effective policy. I thank you for giving us this opportunity. We will continue to fulfil our our responsibilities and remain open to exchanging experience. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Echarif, very much for your very interesting presentation. Actually, the example of Türkiye is a powerful illustration of what coordinated policies look like in action. Quotas, licensing, capacity building, customs trainings, recovery infrastructure. All of these activities are pulling in the same direction. So the lesson is clear: well-coordinated policies deliver results. They're not optional. And now, from the national experience of Türkiye, we move to a regional One, and that is the European Union. We have online Agnieszka Turszczynska from European Commission who will explain us the European Union EFCAS regulation, which is the most comprehensive framework for sustainable cooling. And she will also explain us the impact it has on the market and the global transition. I hope we have Ms. Turszynska online and then she can start with her presentation.

Good early afternoon to everyone.

Can you please tell me if you can hear me?

Good morning. Good morning. Hello, Tui.

All right, I think I will start again. Good early afternoon to everyone. It's a pleasure for me to participate to today, even if only virtually this time, to discuss the role of policies in shaping markets for sustainable cooling in the European Union.

Okay, can, can I have the microphone? It's not working. Technical problems happens.

It's not working.

I'll try from this one. No, also no.