World Bank releases $157m for cooling projects
19th October 2021
USA: The World Bank has released $157m to promote low-carbon and inclusive cooling solutions in nine countries.
The World Bank’s Cooling Facility, through which monies from the UNFCCC’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) will be channeled, is one of the world’s first multi-country financing initiatives to focus on cooling. It will seek to help countries develop the necessary market infrastructure, financing mechanisms, and policies and regulations to deploy low-carbon cooling.
With a focus on space cooling, refrigeration and cold chains, the Cooling Facility will help address barriers which, it says, have so far limited the deployment of low-carbon cooling technologies.
It will work with nine countries across different sectors, looking at different cooling solutions. In El Salvador, Sao Tome and Principe and Somalia, the facility will support “reliable and climate friendly” vaccine cold chains as well as low-carbon cooling in health facilities. In Kenya and Malawi, the Cooling Facility will support low-carbon and affordable cooling in rural communities and agricultural sectors, and North Macedonia, Panama, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, will receive support for passive and low carbon cooling solutions for more energy-efficient buildings.
The monies from the GCF is expected to bring an additional $722.8m in World Bank co-financing.
