Chilling Prospects: Tracking Sustainable Cooling for All 2025
The Chilling Prospects analysis leverages best available data to map cooling access gaps faced by populations in the Global South, identifying where these groups are and the key factors driving vulnerability. The report provides a year-over-year view, covering 77 countries, including 54 high-impact countries where risks exist on a national scale, and 23 countries with high-temperature regions where risks are analyzed at a subnational level.
Like previous editions, the 2025 analysis focuses on populations at high risk due to inadequate access to cooling for thermal comfort and safety, food preservation, and medical products, and includes both rural and urban poor communities. It also examines medium-risk populations, who are ready to purchase cooling solutions but have limited options that are both sustainable and affordable (the lower-middle-income group). Lastly, it covers low-risk populations, typically able to access efficient cooling solutions (the middle-income group).
This data release will be followed by accompanying Chilling Prospects data stories on the impacts of extreme heat and a lack of access to cooling through COP30. Follow here to learn more.
It finds that just over 1 billion people are at high risk of a lack of access to crucial cooling solutions in the 77 countries analyzed. This includes over 309 million people among the rural poor and 695 million people among the urban poor. A further 2.83 billion people are at medium-risk of a lack of access to cooling. Meeting the cooling needs of these groups represents an increasingly urgent climate, development and energy systems challenge.
Closing the access gap sustainably requires a comprehensive and systemic shift to sustainable cooling. This includes reducing heat exposure and cooling demand through passive design in buildings and cold chains; improving equipment efficiency standards; increasing affordability of solutions through technology and policy innovations; and accelerating the phase-down of climate-warming refrigerants.
