UN Resident Coordinator Remarks at the Sustainable Cooling Summit 2024

Programme Director,

The Right Hon. Prime Minister,

Hon. Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Ms. Jane Mkhonta-Simelane

Senior Government Officials

Manzini Regional Administrator Prince Gija,

Chief executives, engineers, and all Esteemed Stakeholders of the Cooling Industry,

UN Colleagues,

Members of the Media,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Siyanivusela bekunene!

It is an honour to join you today at the 2024 Cooling Summit which is being held on World Refrigeration Day. As you would know, this day is dedicated to the refrigeration sector and acknowledges the work of refrigeration engineers and scientists who make our homes and businesses more comfortable while reducing harm to the environment. 

Therefore, please join me in applauding all our captains and engineers in the industry who work in the refrigeration and cold chain systems and the role they play in our daily lives and the broader implications they have on our planet. 

I also wish to express my deep gratitude to the Right Honourable Prime Minister Mr. Russell Dlamini for his association to this Summit as the guest of honour which underscores the high level of commitment by the Government of Eswatini to addressing climate change and promoting sustainable development.

Allow me to also extend my heartfelt appreciation to Minister Mkhonta-Simelane and the Eswatini Environment Authority for organizing this important summit. 

Today’s summit, themed Sustainable Cooling: Cooling Without Warming the Planet reminds us of both the challenge we face and the opportunity we have to deploy our human agency to address the challenge.

The challenge is, of course, the pressing climate crisis. The opportunity we have is to deploy the science of our industry to continue to refine and deploy sustainable cooling solutions.

Kindly allow me to address briefly each one of this.

First, the climate crisis.

As you would know, we commemorated the World Environment Day last month. It was reported that last month, May 2024, was the hottest May in recorded history.   

Every day, we are seeing the effects of a warming planet and the rising climate chaos in its wake.

Here, in the SADC region, we have a drought situation that have seen countries declare emergencies that require over USD 5 billion to ensure mitigation, particularly in relation to food. In east Africa, we have experienced extreme rains and flooding. Thus, climate chaos is destroying lives and economies.

While the urgency of the climate crisis is undeniable, hesitation, procrastination, blame-games, and about-turns still dominate where quick, decisive and collective action is called for.

I wish to echo the sentiments of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, on World Environment Day (WED) this year, that “it is a travesty of climate justice that those least responsible for the crisis are hardest hit: the poorest people; the most vulnerable countries; women and girls.”

We must, therefore, continue to raise our voices for climate justice even as we play our role in mitigating the climate chaos.

On WED this year, the UN Secretary-General said that we, humans, are both the danger to the climate, and also the solution. 

So, please allow me to move to the second, hopeful point, about the opportunity we have.

In many ways, we are here to celebrate a good story: the good story of how the cooling industry, driven by science and engineering, responded collectively and ambitiously to the crisis of the depleted ozone layer.

It is the story of the 1987 Montreal Protocol which has turned out to be a landmark multilateral environmental agreement in regulating the consumption and production of man-made ‘ozone-depleting substances.’ 

It is the story of continuous learning and adaptation, leading to the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol which seeks to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) starting with higher-income countries and working down toward all counties by 2024. As you would know, HFCs had been thought to be appropriate replacements for chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) until science proved otherwise.

As we meet at this Summit, it is an opportunity to reflect on the lessons that can be transferred from the cooling industry and the response to the ozone layer depletion to the broader climate crisis that now threatens human existence.

It is a lesson about how unanimity by member states can lead to quick and concerted action

It is a lesson about the transformative power of multilateralism and active citizenship in addressing environmental challenges. Countries with the ability to provide the resources quickly lined up funding to support less-able countries to transition from the harmful gasses. This is unlike the situation with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change where only USD 10 billion of the projected USD100 billion to support climate action has been realised.

It is a lesson about allowing scientific consensus to drive action. In the climate crisis today, what is missing is not scientific consensus but rather political consensus and will.

It is a lesson about quick action as opposed to procrastination. The Montreal Protocol worked because an international committee assembled and solved the issue with the urgency the crisis demanded. They recognized that every day they didn’t address CFCs made the problem worse. The longer we take to act on climate change, the more painful it will be, eventually. This message has been repeated countless times by the UN Secretary-General.

It is a lesson that actions, however small they may seem, are important to our efforts to save the planet. This summit is about green cooling solutions through utilizing natural refrigerants and highly energy-efficient systems powered by renewable energy sources. In the greater scheme of things, however, it is about fostering sustainable development.

Finally, it is a lesson that all global agreements are as good as their implementation by member states, large or small, and how they are understood and acted upon by individual and corporate citizens.

Let me therefore congratulate the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini and the refrigeration and cooling industry for the tremendous achievement in the total elimination of chloroflourocarbons (CFCs)in 2007, 3 years before the 2010 target set by the Montreal Protocol. Eswatini is also in full compliance with phase-out obligations of hydrochloroflourocarbons (HFCFs) and on course to meet 67.5% reduction by 2025.

Your Excellency the Prime Minister, Hon Minister, ladies and gentlemen, 

Allow me to conclude by highlighting the UN’s support and partnership with Eswatini. 

1. Partnership with Italy: The Government of Eswatini and the Republic of Italy, with technical support from UNDP, have collaborated to combat climate change with a EURO 7 million agreement. This partnership supports energy security, environmental protection, and resilience building. A notable project is the Greening of the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, aimed at reducing energy demand and costs by replacing old systems with clean, renewable energy solutions.

2. Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS): Spearheaded by the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs with UNDP support, Eswatini is crafting its LT-LEDS. This strategy is a roadmap toward a low-carbon and climate-resilient future, guiding national policies and empowering communities to participate actively in our climate journey.

The United Nations stands in solidarity with Eswatini through providing the necessary technical expertise, resources, and collaborative platforms to drive climate action.

Once again, congratulations to the Government, the ministry, the Environment Authority, the cooling industry, all scientists and engineers and everyone that has been involvement in putting this summit together. I wish fruitful deliberations.

Thank you.