“There has been a myopic focus on heat and electricity, ignoring the iceberg that is coming our way,” comments Dearman CEO Toby Peters, who is also a lead academic on the Policy Commission.
“As the planet warms and as people in Asia, Latin America and Africa become richer, the global demand for cooling will boom,” he continues.
“Unless we find a way to provide sustainable and energy efficient refrigeration, air conditioning and chilled transportation, the impact on CO2 targets and air pollution will become insurmountable.”
The Birmingham report suggests there is an urgent need to rethink cooling – both to avoid worsening environmental impacts and to grasp the opportunity of the UK’s ‘cold economy’.
Importantly, it acknowledges the vital role that cold plays in modern life, the environmental impact it has and the rapidly growing global demand for all forms of cooling.
It also sets out a roadmap for how the delivery of cold can be made cleaner and more sustainable, both by bringing forward new technologies and by addressing cold as part of the overall energy system.
“I’m optimistic,” continues Peters. “The avalanche of cold demand has not yet hit us – and, while it is an impending threat, if we act now, it represents a huge opportunity to create viable new technologies, to reshape and integrate infrastructure and to create jobs.”
Peters insists that clean cold technologies can be much less polluting, more effective and cheaper to run than existing fossil fuelled systems – and that includes in terms of transport refrigeration units, currently being trialled by Dearman.