Progress towards ensuring access to safe, efficient, and affordable cooling, a critical enabler of health, productivity, and climate resilience, remains dangerously slow. As global temperatures rise, cooling demand is accelerating rapidly—particularly in heat-vulnerable countries such as Pakistan—yet access to modern, energy-efficient cooling solutions remains highly unequal.

Today, hundreds of millions of people are exposed to extreme indoor heat due to inefficient cooling technologies, unreliable electricity supply, and high operating costs. Conventional air-conditioning systems are energy-intensive, expensive to run, and dependent on high-GWP refrigerants, placing significant strain on electricity grids while increasing carbon emissions. Without a fundamental shift away from the status quo, growing cooling demand risks deepening energy poverty, worsening public-health outcomes, and undermining climate action.

The cooling challenge extends beyond technology alone. It reflects systemic market and policy failures that prevent efficient, low-carbon solutions from reaching those who need them most. If unaddressed, the lack of affordable and climate-appropriate cooling will jeopardise progress not only toward SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), but also SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).