The graphic recording of the conference

Cool Up invited visual artist and graphic designer Gabriele Schlipf to record the regional conference in real-time. The installation enhanced the event with lively images that involved participants and triggered new ideas and connections between the topics that were being presented.

Identifying stakeholder needs in the sustainable cooling transition

As part of Cool Up’s regional conference stakeholders from the technical, policy, and finance sector had the opportunity to exchange in smaller groups about the sustainable cooling transition in the Middle East and North Africa region and Türkiye. The groups were purposefully mixed to facilitate a cross-regional and cross-sectoral discussion. By way of three prompting questions, the participants discussed what was missing in their sectors and what they could contribute to bring the sustainable cooling transition moving forward. The participants were also encouraged to think of areas where they would be willing to collaborate with other actors within the sustainable cooling transition.

Click here to download the results of the stakeholder discussion on the sustainable cooling transition.

Expert knowledge sharing about the sustainable cooling transition

The ‘Realising Opportunities for Sustainable Cooling’ conference was built on Cool Up’s learnings and outputs to explore specific sustainable cooling and natural refrigerant technologies, policy strategies, and financing solutions to reduce cooling demand in Cool Up partner countries and throughout the MENA region. It was structured as a series of plenary and parallel panel sessions while also focusing on facilitating regional exchange and relationship building. The sessions allowed participants to hear from high-level policy officials and industry leaders from across the four Cool Up countries, and dive into the details of sustainable cooling accommodating different perspectives on cooling demand as a socio-technical topic.

Strengthening gender equality in the sustainable cooling transition

During the conference, Cool Up organised a ‘Breakfast for Women in Sustainable Cooling’ gathering ambitious women working towards the sustainable cooling transition who participated the regional conference to talk about gender equality in the workplace. The breakfast was moderated by Cool Up’s national partner Eng. Sawsan Bawaresh from the Royal Scientific Society in Jordan, and gave female leaders working in sustainable cooling the opportunity to share their experiences and engage in this informal networking forum with like-minded colleagues.

The event included an opening speech by Cool Up’s Programme Director Katja Eisbrenner from Guidehouse which highlighted the importance of female representation in the sustainable cooling sector and what this means in the context of the Cool Up programme and the International Climate Initiative (IKI). Additionally, Cool Up’s national partner Meral Mungan-Arda from UNDP Turkey shared her experiences in following career paths while overcoming gender-based obstacles and social barriers. The one-hour breakfast allowed for an open discussion about the role of women in the sustainable cooling transition by sharing success stories and advices, celebrating each other’s achievements, and motivating each other in a positive and intimate atmosphere.

Enabling exchange between partner country ministry representatives

As the Cool Up programme continues to stay in close contact with its national and international stakeholders, the regional conference offered the opportunity to invite participating ministry representatives of Cool Up partner countries Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye to in-person meetings with Dr. Philipp Behrens, Head of Department of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in Germany (BMWK) and Dr. Tabea Junk, Project Manager at ZUG. The meetings were organised by Guidehouse, as the lead organisation of the Cool Up programme, and its national partner organisations the Integrated Development Group (IDG) Egypt, the Royal Science Society (RSS) Jordan, the Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC) and the United Development Group (UNDP) Türkiye to exchange on Cool Up activities and further reinforce cooperation between the countries.

Meeting participants left to right:

Top left: Norhan El Dalal (IDG Egypt), Katja Eisbrenner (Guidehouse), Dr. Tabea Junk (ZUG), Dr. Philipp Behrens (Internationale Klima Initiative, IKI), Moritz Schäfer (Guidehouse), Esin Yavaşır (German Embassy Ankara), Eslam Mahdy (Guidehouse), Maksim Surkov (UNDP), Dr. Sayed Shebl (Housing & Building National Research Center, HBRC), Dr. Ezzat Lewis (EEAA Egypt), Dr. Mohamed Salheen (IDG Egypt), Dr. Mohamed Bayoumi (UNDP), Dr. Baher ElShaarawy (Prime Minister’s office Egypt), Dr. Nesen Sumerli-Anac (Guidehouse)

Top right: Moritz Schäfer (Guidehouse), Katja Eisbrenner (Guidehouse), Dr. Philipp Behrens (Internationale Klima Initiative, IKI), Dr. Nesen Surmeli-Anac (Guidehouse), Dr. Tabea Junk (ZUG), Sorina Mortada (Lebanese Centre for Energy Conservation, LCEC), Dr. Joseph Al Assad (Ministry of Energy and Water Lebanon), Etienne Gonin (UNDP), Mazen Husein (National Ozone Unit Lebanon), Lara Haidar (National Ozone Unit Lebanon)

Bottom left: Katja Eisbrenner (Guidehouse), Dr. Tabea Junk (ZUG), Dr. Philipp Behrens (Internationale Klima Initiative, IKI), Mohd Shaat (Ministry of Industry and Trade Jordan), Esin Yavaşır (German Embassy Ankara), Katja Dinges (Guidehouse), Maksim Surkov (UNDP), Rana Saleh (UNDP), Rafat Assi (Royal Scientific Society Jordan), Sawsan Bawaresh (Royal Scientific Society Jordan), Mohammad Abumughli (UNDP), Heba Zrygat (Ministry of Environment Jordan)

Bottom right: Dr. Nesen Surmeli-Anac (Guidehouse), Katja Eisbrenner (Guidehouse), Dr. Tabea Junk (ZUG), Dr. Philipp Behrens (Internationale Klima Initiative, IKI), Esin Yavaşır (German Embassy Ankara), Moritz Schäfer (Guidehouse), Meral Mungan Arda (UNDP Türkiye), Dr. Veysel Selimoğlu (National Ozone Unit Türkiye), Volkan Polat (National Ozone Unit Türkiye), Dr. Abdulkadir Bektaş (Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Türkiye), Ecem Bahçelioğlu (UNIDO), Gökhan Berker Akbiyik (National Ozone Unit Türkiye), Sezin Sönmez Erbaş (National Ozone Unit Türkiye)

Hosting Cool Up’s first regional conference, “Realising Opportunities for Sustainable Cooling”, marks one of many major milestones for the consortium of the Cool Up programme. The conference provided an opportunity to bring together international and national stakeholders from the public, industry and finance sector, in many cases for the very first time, to create an open space for discussion and exchange on accelerating the transition to sustainable cooling and natural refrigerants in Cool Up’s partner countries with expertise from around the region. It showed that the mutual exchange of know-how and the interpersonal (face-to-face) interactions on cross-sectoral level but also between countries were valued by the conference participants and are necessary to leverage learning effects and to create new opportunities for cooperation.

This year’s regional conference in Istanbul was the first of three regional conferences planned throughout the project duration of the Cool Up programme. Cool Up will continue to stay in close connection with its networks that were built up before and during the conference and seeks to create new bonds with stakeholders that play a role in the transition to sustainable cooling and natural refrigerants. This will be crucial for upcoming activities of the Cool Up programme that that will touch upon regional demonstration projects and capacity building trainings across the policy, industry, and finance sectors.

The Cool Up consortium thanks all participants of the regional conference and is excited to continuing working on upscaling sustainable cooling and natural refrigerants together as a strong team with profound allies. The next regional conference is planned for 2024, where stakeholders will reconvene to share and discuss the development in transition to sustainable cooling, with real life implementation and performance evaluation from Cool up’s activities on pioneering examples of natural refrigerant solutions as demonstration projects, and to once again catalyse the knowledge transfer in the region across stakeholders.