Industrial cooling
Industry clusters that require process cooling, such as pharmaceuticals, data centres and chemicals processing, should be encouraged to transition to low-GWP refrigerants and improve refrigerant handling. At the same time, industry clusters should look to more efficient technologies for production of cooling such as reuse of industrial waste heat through absorption chillers and linking industrial units through district cooling systems.
Waste
Current waste management systems are not coping with rapidly increasing waste generation. 2.24 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste were produced globally in 2020. If current trends continue, the amount of waste will increase to 3.88 billion tonnes per year by 2050. Waste reduction, through circular economy, approaches and applying the waste hierarchy (preventing waste, preparing for re-use, recycling, recovery and, finally, landfill disposal, in this order), are key to addressing waste issues and their detrimental impacts on humans and ecosystem health as well as our climate.
Methane is created when organic waste decomposes in landfills and large open dumps. 20% of the global anthropogenic methane emissions are from the waste sector from food and other organic materials left in landfills, open dumps, as well as wastewater.
Addressing greenhouse gas emissions from waste provides an important entry point for innovation and development in circular economy models, where waste by-products can create sustainable resources for the energy, agriculture sectors.
