Financing climate-friendly cooling at city scale

This paper explores how greener refrigeration and air-conditioning could be provided at city scale. It discusses a variety of financing instruments and business models and presents an integrated model for financing city-scale green cooling. Cooling has had a significant impact on global climate change. It is important to respond promptly and effectively to the climate challenges posed by the growing global demand for air-conditioning and refrigeration to achieve the Paris Agreement objectives and the mid-century carbon-neutral goals.

This paper recommends an integrated model that can be considered by cities in ADB’s developing member countries for launching green city-scale cooling deployment programs. This recommended model draws on international financing mechanisms, business models, and investment de-risking strategies. The design of the model reflects the goal to be achieved, which is to solve the obstacles to the large-scale deployment of green cooling solutions.