As heatwaves threaten human safety, latest Chilling Prospects data highlight need for action to support the most vulnerable with sustainable cooling solutions

In the past two weeks, global average temperatures have reached new highs, and over the past year, there have been record-breaking heatwaves in Iran, China, Mexico, North Africa, and many other regions. These extreme temperatures are putting lives at risk, especially for those living without access to cooling solutions.

In the absence of reliable electricity to power cooling devices, or incomes sufficient to afford them, human health and safety is in danger due to heat stress. Economic activities and critical public services are also jeopardized by a lack of cooling, particularly in rural areas where cold chains are needed for food and medicines. Hence why sustainable cooling is a pressing development and climate change adaptation challenge.

However, failure to adapt with sustainable solutions also poses long-term challenges to climate change mitigation efforts. Accounting for more than 7 precent of global emissions already, serving the unmet cooling needs of billions of people with inefficient solutions could cause up to a five-time increase in energy use for cooling and slow progress on global decarbonization efforts.

SEforALL’s Chilling Prospects research series uses data to shine a light on the state of cooling access gaps for vulnerable populations. The 2023 analysis assesses cooling access risks across 77 countries where vulnerable populations live and provides analysis based on factors of vulnerability, tracking progress year over year with the best available data as they become available.

The Chilling Prospects 2023 analysis finds that 1.12 billion people among the rural and urban poor are considered to be at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling, a decrease of approximately 20.4 million people compared to 2022. Driving the change is decreases in the rural poor population in Asia and the Middle East, including significant reductions in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan coupled with slow but steady declines in the urban poor population at risk in this region. In the assessed African countries, there is continued growth of the rural poor population due in part to slower than needed progress on electricity access and economic constraints in an inflationary environment.

The data show that the most acute cooling access gaps are in poor rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa and in the growing cities in high-temperature regions of the Global South. In the run-up to COP 28, this highlights the needs for new commitments towards pro-poor cooling innovation, integrating cooling with rural electrification planning, and harnessing the power of passive and nature-based cooling solutions for vulnerable urban dwellers.

The 1.12 billion people at high risk is composed of an estimated 596 million women and 525 million men, with women making up approximately 52 percent of the population at high risk in rural areas and 54 percent in urban areas respectively.

A lack of granular gender-disaggregated data poses serious difficulties to quantifying the cooling needs of women and men. Governments, philanthropies, private sector solution providers and development financiers can begin with systematic collection of gender-disaggregated data and use it to guide gender-responsive policy and investment.