Refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) is vital for human well-being, for example, to prevent food loss and guarantee supply with medical care with functioning cold chains and alleviate heat stress through space cooling. Cooling sector specific mitigation targets and measures can significantly contribute to achieving a country’s overall climate targets and therefore, need to be considered when defining and updating Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
This guideline intends to provide political decision-makers with a step-by-step guidance on how to integrate and appropriately cover the cooling sector in an NDC. Moreover, it offers benchmarks for the degree of ambition of actions targeting direct and indirect emissions of the RAC sector.