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Session Description

The year 2024 was the hottest ever recorded on Earth (WMO, 2024), and global temperatures continue to rise at an alarming rate. As extreme heat intensifies worldwide, there is an urgent need to develop long-term resilience strategies that ensure thermally comfortable and healthy built environments.

Building design must integrate both climate mitigation and adaptation. While active cooling effectively enhances indoor comfort, over-reliance on air-conditioning increases energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, undermining mitigation efforts. Cooling already accounts for 7% of global emissions (UNEP, 2024) and is the fastest-growing source of energy demand in buildings (IEA, 2023). Without further action, emissions from cooling could reach 6.1 billion tons of CO₂e by 2050 - over 10% of projected global emissions (UNEP, 2023). This challenge is particularly acute in emerging and developing economies, where urbanization, population growth, and rising access to cooling technologies are driving rapid demand increases. The global cooled floor area, now at 105 billion square meters, is expected to more than double to 250 billion square meters by 2050 (IEA, 2023).

Passive cooling strategies - design and operational approaches that minimize or eliminate reliance on mechanical systems - offer the most effective pathway to address this challenge. These measures reduce building cooling demand and associated emissions while improving comfort, productivity, and affordability. By 2050, passive cooling could reduce growth in cooling capacity by 24%, saving an estimated US$1.5 - 3 trillion in new equipment costs and cutting emissions by 1.3 billion tons of CO₂e (UNEP, 2023).
At the urban scale, passive cooling is vital for creating liveable, heat-resilient cities. Integrating vegetation, water bodies, permeable surfaces, and optimized street orientation can reduce heat accumulation and mitigate urban heat islands. In alignment with the UN Secretary-General’s Call to Action on Extreme Heat and the Global Cooling Pledge, these approaches advance sustainable and equitable cooling while strengthening climate resilience and public health.

Recognizing these benefits, more than 70 countries endorsed the Global Cooling Pledge at COP28, committing to establish national building energy codes incorporating passive cooling and energy-efficiency strategies by 2030 for all new and refurbished buildings (UNEP, 2025). In 2024, the Declaration de Chaillot further reinforced international collaboration toward energy-efficient and resilient buildings, recognizing passive cooling as a key strategy (UNEP, 2024).

Building on this global momentum, this session will explore how heat-stressed countries can enhance energy efficiency and thermal comfort through passive cooling from policy, financial, and technical perspectives. Government representatives and design practitioners from across the world will share insights, best practices, and lessons learned to accelerate the adoption of passive cooling strategies.