News facts
The Climate Technology Centre & Network was represented by Thando Ndarana from the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), CTCN Consortium partner, at the Green Cooling Africa Week. Read about CTCN’s Green Cooling Africa initiative.
Due to low efficiency levels and high leakage rates of refrigerant gases with high global warming potential (GWP), the refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) sector is responsible for a significant share of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and this share is expected to rise to 30% by 2030. Especially in Africa, the rapidly expanding middle class and changing lifestyles translate into growing demand for refrigeration and air-conditioning. In order to mitigate both direct and indirect emissions from the cooling sector, the introduction and diffusion of green cooling technologies is of paramount importance.
Three GIZ projects (Green Cooling Initiative, NAMA Project, Transport Refrigeration South Africa) financed under the international climate initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear safety (BMUB) organized the Green Cooling Africa Week from June 7-10 2016 in Centurion, South Africa.
The organizers acknowledge that exchange between technology suppliers and end-users, as well as between industry and public institutions, is important for the promotion of green cooling technologies. Consequently, around forty stakeholders, comprising national ozone officers, climate change focal points, industry representatives of twelve African countries were invited and joined the four-day event.
Within the framework of the Green Cooling Africa Initiative (GCAI), CTCN and BMUB support four African partner countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Namibia). Seven delegates from those countries, working in the ozone and climate departments of their home ministries, were among the participants engaged in a vivid exchange on how to further the goal of transformational change in the cooling sector via sped up technology transfer and implementation of sectoral RAC NAMAs.
During the event, CTCN and its activities, as well as the Green Cooling Africa Initiative, were introduced. Presentations by the CTCN consortium partner ‘Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’, as well as by representatives of the four CTCN-GCAI partner countries, spurred great interest among the participants.