Cooling and refrigeration emissions to increase, says study

Emissions from the air conditioning and refrigeration sector will increase by over a quarter by 2020 relative to 2005 levels, claims a study carried out on behalf of the European Commission. This could impact on the energy performance of buildings, seen as key to achieving the EU’s 2020 climate and energy objectives. The research, conducted by the IIASA institute, focused on non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as f-gases and methane. Nonetheless, despite the predicted increase, the cooling sector will continue to represent less than 10% of total non-CO2 GHG emissions. Even so, reducing cooling sector emissions is likely to cost over €30 per tonne. The study predicts that total non-CO2 emissions in the EU will fall by 14% by 2030 compared to 2005.

The IIASA study can be found here: http://www.iiasa.ac.at/

The 2010 Directive on the energy performance of buildings can be found here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:153:0013:0035:EN:PDF