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The global energy demand for cooling will significantly increase in the next decades due to growing population, urbanization and food chains, in particular in emerging economies. The Green Cooling Initiative (GCI, 2014) estimates the refrigeration and air conditioning secto (RAC) to account for 13% of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030, making the RAC sector a rapidly increasing contributor to climate change. Meanwhile, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are debating a new global climate deal, which shall be agreed upon at the UN climate conference in December 2015 (COP21) in Paris, and for which Parties agreed to prepare and submit Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

The objective of this working paper is to inform decision makers involved in INDC preparation on the role that the RAC sector could play in countries’ INDC implementation as a key sector to achieve the goals formulated in the INDC. The paper briefly introduces the latest UNFCCC developments, GHG emission trends and reduction potentials of the RAC sector. Country case studies (on Indonesia and Ghana) that are both characterized by rapidly growing RAC markets help showcase the range of technology options, policies, and measures in transitioning towards a sustainable RAC sector development. Subsequently, the main  challenges in transforming the RAC sector to a key GHG mitigation sector are summarized. The paper finally concludes by highlighting aspects that should be considered when integrating climate friendly cooling in national efforts to combat global climate change. In brief the paper concludes that:

• Without any fundamental technology changes in the global RAC market, GHG emissions in the RAC sector will rise rapidly in the next three decades due to increased use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and energy consumption as a response to the growing cooling demand. However, GHG mitigation in the RAC sector can be realized in a well-defined field of action with relatively low costs, straightforward measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) as well as socioeconomic benefits. Climate friendly cooling, therefore, holds a large potential to contribute to a successful INDC implementation and consequently to combat global climate change.
• The UNFCCC including its INDCs process builds the necessary accounting framework for indirect (CO2) and direct (HFC) emissions in the RAC sector. The Montreal Protocol’s institutions have the sector know-how, capacities, and structures to coordinate the HFC phase-down and enable the accelerated use of low global warming potential refrigerants. Therefore a joint and synergetic approach to tackle HFC mitigation shall be chosen.
• The NAMA concept helps package an accelerated HFC phase-down by combining the promotion of low GWP refrigerants with progressive energy efficiency policies. The NAMA concept is already applied as an implementation tool (e.g. in Thailand or Indonesia) for GHG mitigation beyond business-as-usual (BAU) practices in the RAC sector, entailing valuable experiences for INDC design and implementation.
• Countries are well advised to assess the specific environmental, technological and economic potential in the RAC sector to determine its relevance for the design and implementation of its INDC in the upcoming years towards 2020 and beyond.