Barbados and Nigeria release National Cooling Actions Plans
The Barbados National Cooling Strategy (NCS) has been made publicly available following its national approval in May 2022. Similarly, as part of the Ozone Day commemoration, the Government of Nigeria through the National Ozone Unit (Federal Ministry of Environment) has released their National Cooling Plan.
These NCAPs contain a comprehensive overview of the RAC market and its key stakeholders, projections on its growth and drivers, as well as a mapping of strategies that can be implemented to reduce energy use and emissions from the sector.
The Barbados National Cooling Strategy (NCS) is a product of the collaborative effort of the National Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) and Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) Management Programme of the Ministry of Environment and National Beautification (MENB) and the Caribbean Cooling Initiative (CCOOL) led United Nation’s Environment Programme (UNEP) – United for Efficiency (U4E) team, with contributions provided by key stakeholders from governmental and non-governmental organisations during consultations, meetings and the document development and review stage.
Under the umbrella of the CCOOL initiative, a review of priority subsets of the cooling sector in Barbados was carried out, with a focus on stationary refrigeration and space cooling given the outsized importance of these applications and ability to make near-term, impactful interventions. CCOOL then developed recommendations to mitigate much of the waste of electricity and the impacts of refrigerant gasses through a range of voluntary and regulatory approaches. The findings are compiled into this National Cooling Strategy.
It includes input from a wide cross-section of the country, including government officials, tourism stakeholders, technology providers, financial institutions, and civil society organizations. A combination of best practice policies, programmes, awareness-raising, and capacity building should be marshalled to change the landscape toward widespread implementation in Barbados, leveraging the best home-grown ideas alongside proven approaches that have taken root in proactive markets around the world.
The theme for the 2022 International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer is Montreal Protocol@35: global cooperation protecting life on earth. It recognizes the impact of the Montreal Protocol on climate change and the need to forge partnerships and develop global cooperation to protect life on earth for future generations.