This week, hundreds of scientists, government officials, and philanthropies are meeting in Bangkok for the first-ever Global Heat Forum. As the world faces forecasts of an extremely hot year, driven by an El Niño weather system exacerbated by climate change, what clean cooling solutions are available?

That’s a question I’m interested in exploring with Sneha Sachar, the Senior Associate Director at the Clean Cooling Collaborative, a philanthropic initiative working to transform the cooling sector and make clean cooling accessible to all. The organisation is an initiative of the ClimateWorks Foundation and was founded ten years ago as the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Program (K-CEP) to support emissions reductions called for by the Kigali Amendment.

Sachar tells me that ‘more people need cooling’; it’s a human need, and a quickly growing one, as the planet warms. Scientists have recently revised the wet-bulb temperature for human survival (the temperature at which humans, even healthy adults, are no longer able to cool themselves with sweat or shed heat) from 35°C at 100 percent humidity to 30-31°C. Last year, more than half of the world’s population experienced at least a month more of extreme heat than the historical average, due to climate change. Cooling solutions – and clean ones – are needed now.

The Clean Cooling Collaborative is present this week in Bangkok for the Global Heat Forum, which has been organised by a number of foundations, including the Rockfeller Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust, alongside other organisations such as the Global Heat Health Information Network and the World Meteorological Organisation, the forum is aiming to create a roadmap for investment and action on extreme heat. Throughout the programme, delegates will be exploring the impacts of extreme heat from all angles and considering what solutions are available.

Ahead of the Forum, I sat down with Sachar to talk about the solutions the Clean Cooling Collaborative has been working on.

Read the full article about the Clean Cooling Collaborative by Elika Roohi and Sneha Sachar at Alliance Magazine.