The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which enters into force on 1 January 2019, will help protect the climate by phasing down high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are commonly used as refrigerants. Promoting energy efficiency of cooling technology can significantly increase those climate co-benefits. The capacity of National Ozone Officers (NOOs) in Article 5 countries needs to be strengthened so they can adjust their national Montreal Protocol compliance programmes to respond to the Kigali Amendment and incorporate energy efficiency considerations into their countries’ work with the refrigeration and air conditioning sector. Since this cannot happen in isolation, a variety of national stakeholders need to come together to develop or revise policies and programmes for integrated, holistic refrigerant management approaches to this next refrigerant transition.
The daily work of the NOOs now takes place in this new Kigali context. Their countries face critical technology and policy choices as they continue work to meet and sustain the Protocol’s HCFC phase-out compliance targets, while simultaneously preparing for the HFC phase down. They need support to assess, monitor and sustain the sound management of refrigerants with due consideration for energy-efficient technology choices and sustaining the critical refrigeration and air conditioning sector workforce.
The Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) is supporting countries, companies and communities to achieve energy efficiency objectives related to the Kigali Amendment. Launched in 2017, K-CEP is deploying US$ 52 million of philanthropic funds to strengthen institutions, support adoption of model policies, scale-up technology deployment, leverage finance and help make cooling more affordable and sustainable. UN Environment is one of K-CEP’s implementing partners.
THE TWINNING PROJECT
UN Environment’s OzonAction’s Compliance Assistance Programme (CAP) manages ten Regional Networks of Ozone Officers covering 147 developing countries, with financial support from the Montreal Protocol’s Multilateral Fund. These highly successful networks are a core mechanism of the Multilateral Fund family of institutions and are a cost-effective and appropriate platform to provide capacity building services. This well-established infrastructure will be used to deliver the “twinning” services under K-CEP.
Under this 2-year project (2018-2019), one national energy policymaker (NEP) per country will be identified and twinned with the NOO from the same country to exchange experiences, develop skills, and share knowledge and ideas on the energy efficient refrigerant transition in support of the Kigali Amendment. UN Environment and its partners will provide these officials with specialized training, capacity building tools, country assessments, and national pilot project opportunities. This interaction will catalyze enhanced cooperation at the national level between these two stakeholder groups, and enable individual governments to integrate energy efficiency more rapidly into the ongoing Montreal Protocol process.
Participation in the project is voluntary and offered as a service to NOOs and NEPs.
ACTIVITY 1: PREPARATION FOR TWINNING
UN Environment will identify an appropriate NEP from each of the 147 countries to participate in twinning as counterparts to the NOOs. The selection will be made with close consultation of the NOO and inputs from the national energy ministry, regional energy efficiency agencies, etc., as appropriate.
UN Environment will conduct a basic gap analysis to understand what critical information is most needed for countries to have a successful twinning experience. Questionnaires will be sent to the NOOs and NEPs in advance of the meetings to identify their needs and encourage the two stakeholders to meet and discuss perspectives beforehand. Based on the results of this gap analysis, UN Environment will engage expert partner organisations to develop capacity building materials related to energy efficiency and low-GWP refrigerants that meet the identified needs. The precise contents will determined once the project gets underway, however it is envisaged that they will include an online tool for national cooling product registration/data gathering.
ACTIVITY 2: TWINNING & CAPACITY BUILDING
UN Environment will organize additional two-day segments back-to-back with each of the Regional Network meetings in 2018 and 2019 for NOOs and NEPs to strengthen their collaboration for meeting Kigali objectives. Altogether, each NOO and NEP will receive at least 28 hours of capacity building on energy efficiency and the cooling sector over the two years.
Potential agenda topics
- K-CEP and its links to Montreal Protocol and UNFCCC
- Technologies and refrigerant choice
- Data, metrics, and tracking methods
- Designing and implementing policies
- Collaboration and advocacy
Similar content will be delivered in all regions, but with modifications to adjust for regional considerations (e.g. language, level of experience, priority sectors). Multilateral Fund institutions, K-CEP partner organizations and at least one regional energy efficiency expert will be invited to participate in the twinning workshops to share, exchange and learn, thus creating a common knowledge-sharing platform for the wider K-CEP community.
ACTIVITY 3: COUNTRY SAVINGS ASSESSMENTS
UN Environment will update its existing Country Savings Assessments for refrigerators and air conditioners for all developing and emerging economies with new data provided by NOOs and NEPs, the latest proprietary data from United4Efficiency partners, and information from other K-CEP projects. In addition to helping the participating countries better strategize their refrigerant transition under the Kigali Amendment, this excercise will provide insights and inputs to other K-CEP activities, such as the International Energy Agency’s Kigali Tracker.
ACTIVITY 4: NATIONAL PILOT PROGRAMMES
UN Environment will support a select group of developing countries that volunteer to participate in the national cooling product registration pilot program. The countries will be prioritized for support based on the extent to which they are committed and able to sustain the registry once the pilot is complete. It is expected that the volunteering countries will have no such system in place aside from that which is required under the Montreal Protocol, and for customs purposes.
