In Bangladesh, over 33 million children are forced to stay home for days as the sweltering heat makes school too dangerous. "I went to the school with my 13-year-old daughter. She was happy her school was open. But I was tense," said Lucky Begum, whose daughter is enrolled at a state-run school in Dhaka. "The heat is too much, she already got heat rashes from sweating. I hope she does not get sick."
It's the second year in a row that the government has been forced to close schools, and for some children, the consequences reach far beyond their schoolbooks. Girls, in particular, face increased risk of gender-based violence, child marriage, and teenage pregnancy.
This is the reality for the people of Bangladesh, one of the countries deemed most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The total number of hot days in a year, where the daily maximum temperature is above 35°С, is projected to increase by 13.23 days by 2039 and 22.27 by 2040-59.
They're not alone. Hundreds of millions of people across Asia, the Pacific, and Africa are at risk of heat-related illnesses and death.
2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 is shaping up to be just as bad, if not worse.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), heat stress is the leading cause of weather-related deaths and can exacerbate underlying illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental health, and asthma.
It can also increase the risk of transmission of some infectious diseases. Hand in hand with its health effects comes climate change's potentially devastating economic impact - a projected 80 million full-time jobs are expected to fall by the wayside by 2030 due to extreme heat.
While the science and statistics are frightening, there is hope. We have the tools and knowledge to prevent or mitigate some climate disasters. Through a multi-sector, multi-country programmatic financing mechanism, the Green Climate Fund (GCF) is using the finance entrusted to it to improve the situation in developing countries by transforming the cooling sector.
With an injection of USD 157 million in financing from GCF, the ESMAP-Cooling Facility, implemented by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), a multi-donor Trust Fund hosted at the World Bank, is one of the world's first cooling-focused facilities which has mobilize funds to provide cooling solutions in nine countries - Bangladesh, El Salvador, Kenya, Malawi, North Macedonia, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, and Sri Lanka.
The Cooling Facility will provide critical funds for investment in cooling projects. The projects financed under this facility will increase energy efficiency, reduce or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and accelerate access to sustainable cooling with a lower carbon footprint for climate resilience and economic growth. The Cooling Facility provides concessional funds to finance investments to adopt or scale up the deployment of sustainable cooling technologies tailored to meet the specific needs of each country.
The impacts on the ground will be substantial as the Cooling Facility rolls out. Cooling in clinics and hospitals means being able to refrigerate vaccines - this alone could save millions of lives. Two health care projects in São Tome and Principe and in Somalia recently approved are the two first projects financed under this Facility.
São Tome and Principe has received a USD 1 Million grant from GCF, as "Additional Financing To Sao Tome & Principe COVID-19 Emergency Response Project." This will finance the deployment of resilient and green cold chains and refrigeration through the installation of solar direct drive refrigerators/freezers, and the solarization of various health facilities, and of central storage facilities for vaccines and for medications.
And Somalia has also received a grant from GCF in the amount of USD 4.25 million. The funding will be used to finance solar direct drive refrigerators and freezers in six regions, including Somaliland, and will also finance technical assistance to improve the policy environment for climate friendly cold chain and power.
In Bangladesh, many children won't be forced to miss school anymore as projects in that country are focused on building development that will mitigate against climate change, like thermally efficient design and construction, passive measures that limit heat entering a building, and efficient air conditioning and ventilation.
School-based education programs will help promote energy efficiency, drive behavioural change within households, and teach children to integrate sustainability into their own habits.
In the financial sector, applying new approaches with banks and micro-finance institutions to design financial products and services that meet the needs of women-driven enterprises and consumers in cooling technologies could spur economic growth.
In a warming world, access to cooling has never been more important. From cold chains and refrigeration to vaccines and healthcare access, GCF is helping to deliver innovative initiatives for climate-friendly and low-carbon cooling solutions across the globe.