Good afternoon!

It’s a great pleasure to be with many of you once again for the Global Panel on Access to Cooling. For those who have visited Rwanda before, welcome home, and to those here for the first time, you are most welcome! Ikaze iwacu - as we say in Kinyarwanda.

The Global Panel on Access to Cooling represents an important piece of the collective effort to both meet our obligations under the Kigali Amendment, and to provide sustainable and affordable cooling to all.

With the Kigali Amendment now in force, and with Article 4 on HFC trade restrictions just one ratification away from activation, this is not an abstract challenge for us to address sometime in the future. It is a live issue that demands our attention. 

In Rwanda, ratifying the amendment was no doubt made easier given its enormous environmental and climate benefits. But it was also thanks to the high level of political will that had been fostered - both here at home led by President Kagame, and around the world. To have already reached 69 ratifications is testament to the enduring spirit of the Montreal Protocol, and the hard work of the Ozone Secretariat at UN Environment. We must now achieve universal ratification.

The amendment, and the support we have received from K-CEP and United for Efficiency, have been a catalyst for Rwanda to move quickly to know exactly where we stand on cooling and HFC use, as well as how to move to clean alternatives as soon as possible.

Rwanda is proud to be working with the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program and UN Environment's United for Efficiency in this effort. Through the Rwanda Cooling Initiative, we have conducted a cooling market assessment, developed a national cooling strategy and minimum energy efficiency standards, and created financial tools to support businesses investing in clean cooling.

The National Cooling Strategy  was the result of collaboration from across government, civil society and academia. From the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Rwanda Environment Management Authority to the Rwanda Standards Board and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, developing the strategy was truly a team effort.

Some of the actions we aim to undertake as part of the strategy include air conditioner and refrigeration regulations and a product registration system to capture information on all products on the market. We are also developing awareness and capacity building programmes as well as investigating an end-of-product-life recycling and processing scheme for cooling appliances.

While these efforts will come in the near future, Rwanda is already investing in Kigali Amendment friendly cooling where it is needed most: the agricultural sector.

In partnership with InspiraFarms, the Ministry of Agriculture is constructing ten solar-powered food processing and refrigerated storage facilities in six districts across Rwanda. Each facility has a total area of 150 square meters that includes cold storage space, a processing area, an aggregation area, administrative and hygiene spaces. Each facility is completely off-grid and in compliance with food safety standards. This project alone will benefit more than 100,000 smallholder farmers.

But we know we need to do more. That’s why today’s discussion is so important. By bringing some of the best minds in the cooling business together, we can better understand how to measure the global challenge of accessing to cooling as well as understanding the policies and programmes that work best.

Rwanda has moved quickly and we are more than happy to share the lessons we have learnt so far. But we are only at the beginning of our journey, and we depend on the advice, support and guidance of everyone here today to make sure we get the clean cooling question right. The alarm bells for the climate emergency are ringing in all our ears.

I wish to conclude by thanking Rachel and the entire team at Sustainable Energy for All for their tremendous work on the “Chilling Prospects” report. The report marked a turning point in the global awareness on the importance of cooling efficiency, and no doubt has been an important component of advancing energy efficiency discussions at international climate negotiations. Let’s continue to work in this spirit of collaboration.

Thank you for your kind attention and I wish you fruitful deliberations.