Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector

Highlights of the Report

• India’s Vulnerabilities:
  • More than 160 to 200 million people could be exposed to a lethal heat wave in India every year.
  • Around 34 million Indians will face job losses due to heat stress-related productivity decline.
  • Food loss due to heat during transportation is likely to soar beyond the current $13 billion annually.

Heat Waves

• A Heat Wave is a period of abnormally high temperatures, more than the normal maximum temperature. Heatwave is considered if the maximum temperature of a station reaches at least 40°C or more for Plains and at least 30°C or more for Hilly regions.
• Based on Departure from Normal Heat Wave: Departure from normal is 4.50°C to 6.40°C; Severe Heat Wave: Departure from normal is >6.40degree C
• Based on Actual Maximum Temperature Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥ 45°C; Severe Heat Wave: When actual maximum temperature ≥47

Major Opportunities for India

• By 2037, the demand for cooling is likely to be eight times more than current levels.
• The need to deploy alternative and innovative energy-efficient technologies for keeping spaces cool could open an investment opportunity of $1.6 trillion by 2040.
• Besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions significantly, it will also create 3.7 million jobs.
• With the demand for cooling shooting up, there will be a demand for a new air-conditioner every 15 seconds.
• These cooling requirements could lead to an expected rise of 435% in annual greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.
• The report proposes a roadmap to support New Delhi’s India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) 2019, through new investments in three major sectors: building construction, cold chains and refrigerants.
• Adopting climate-responsive cooling techniques as a norm in both private and government-funded constructions.
  • This will ensure that those at the bottom of the economic ladder are not disproportionately affected by rising temperatures.
  • India’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-an affordable housing program for the poor, can adopt such changes on scale.
• Enacting a policy for district cooling could lead to the consumption of 20-30% less power than the most efficient conventional cooling solutions.
  • District cooling technologies generate chilled water in a central plant which is then distributed to multiple buildings via underground insulated pipes. This brings down the cost for providing cooling to individual buildings.
  • Implementation of local and city-wide urban cooling measures such as cool roofs should also be considered.
• Fixing gaps in cold chain distribution networks by investing in pre-cooling and refrigerated transport systems.
  • This will minimize rising food and pharmaceutical wastage during transport due to higher temperatures.
  • It can help decrease food loss by about 76% and reduce carbon emissions by 16%.
• Improvement in servicing, maintenance and disposal of equipment that uses hydrochlorofluorocarbons alongside a shift to alternative options with a lower global warming footprint.
• This can create two million jobs for trained technicians over the next two decades and reduce the demand for refrigerants by around 31%.
• Effective implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-30 with the state playing a leading role is also suggested in the report.

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