MENA - Development of National Cooling Action Plans to accelerate climate friendly cooling and HFCs phase-down

This project was approved in 2022 under the CCAC's call for transformative action in the cooling sector. 

Demand for cooling in the MENA region is increasing, while countries simultaneously seek to prevent further warming and limit HFC emissions. At the same time, countries are seeking to meet commitments for HFC phase-down following ratification of the Kigali Amendment to the Montral Protocol. This requires targeted policy development and implementation, as well as the creation of market incentives for a transition to climate-friendly cooling. 

Reducing HFCs has multiple co-benefits. Improving the cooling industry's energy efficiency together with a transition to climate-friendly refrigerants can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 210-460 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent over the next four decades. These greenhouse gas emissions cuts will be importnant to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

What we're doing 

National Cooling Action Plans (NCAPs) can show the potential for the cooling sector to rapidly lower emissions and build the political will for cross-economy strategies and policies that target the cooling sector. This is particularly important in the MENA region given rapid rising growth in cooling demand, and its climate vulnerability to rising heat. 

This project will showcase the NCAP approach in two countries in the MENA region, and provide a regional methodology to encourage all countries in the region to develop similar plans.  

At a minimum, this project will produce the following outcomes: 

• Countries in the MENA region have increased capacity to develop National Cooling Action Plans (NCAPs) in accordance with the Kigali Amendment by the end of the project. 
• Two countries in the MENA region develop and adopt National Cooling Action Plans by the end of the project. 
• National governments in the MENA region have increased awareness and improved skills to implement NCAPs and develop policies to accelerate the shift to climate-friendly cooling and the phase-down of HFC emissions by the end of the project.