EIA urges UK Government to urgently adopt a National Cooling Action Plan

LONDON, United Kingdom, 6 July 2026: As the United Kingdom recovers from its latest record-breaking heatwave, the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said it has published UK Cooling Policy in a Warming World, an urgent call to action for the Government to adopt a National Cooling Action Plan addressing climate adaptation and climate mitigation.

Making the announcement through a July 6 Press Release, the EIA said that with the United Kingdom warming faster than the global average, heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense, leading to thousands of excess deaths annually and widespread overheating in homes, workplaces and public buildings.

Without strategic intervention, the EIA said, the United Kingdom risks a wholesale reliance on air conditioning, which would drive up energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions and social inequalities.

EIA said it is calling for a comprehensive strategy, which protects vulnerable people from extreme heat by prioritising passive cooling, urban greening and other solutions to achieve equitable access to cooling.

The new briefing, EIA said, contains a warning that a rapid, unplanned expansion of air conditioning will result in summer cooling poverty, akin to the winter’s fuel poverty, with urban areas suffering even greater temperature hikes due to the Urban Heat Island Effect being significantly exacerbated by air conditioning.

The heatwave, EIA pointed out, has already triggered a surge in air conditioner sales, with retailers reporting record demand. The recently released fourth independent assessment of climate change risk, A Well-Adapted UK, by the Government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) encourages more active cooling but fails to mention that most air conditioners run on hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a class of synthetic climate super pollutants the United Kingdom is trying to reduce under the F-gas Regulation, EIA said.

In fact, the Seventh Carbon Budget of the CCC, adopted by Parliament a week earlier, requires HFCs and other F-gas emissions to fall by 73% by 2040 – yet current policies are not on track, and the revision of the F-gas Regulation has been delayed by DEFRA (the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), EIA said.

Clare Perry, EIA UK Climate Campaign Leader, said: “The UK is sleepwalking into a cooling crisis. Every new air conditioning unit sold today risks locking in decades of F-gas emissions while doing little to address the root cause of overheating.

“The Government must act now to ban HFCs and hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) in cooling equipment, mandate natural refrigerants where active cooling is necessary and prioritise passive cooling.

“Natural refrigerants, such as CO₂, propane and ammonia are ready, scalable and climate-safe. The EU’s rapid shift to propane heat pumps – now 38% of the market – proves it can be done. The UK must follow suit or risk falling further behind.”

UK Cooling Policy in a Warming World highlights that the United Kingdom has a unique window to align its cooling policy to address adaptation and mitigation, EIA said. The Government has promised it will publish a “cooling outlook document”, but this is described as a “framework for bringing together existing relevant policies” and appears to fall short of its commitment under the Global Cooling Pledge to publish a national cooling action plan, EIA said.

Perry added: “National Adaptation Programmes have failed to incentivise the systemic changes needed to make the UK safe from deadly heat. A whole-of-Government approach to cooling is needed, one that protects the vulnerable and avoids widening the cooling poverty gap while simultaneously accelerating mitigation.”

EIA said it is urging the UK Government to publish a comprehensive National Cooling Action Plan, which aligns adaptation, net-zero and public health objectives. The plan, EIA said, must prioritise:

• Addressing the Equity Gap – Recognise cooling as a public health and equity issue, with priority support for vulnerable people and communities. Expand access to cooling shelters and community cool spaces to prevent a ‘cooling poverty’ divide
• Avoiding Active Cooling – Mandate passive cooling measures in new buildings and accelerate retrofits for existing homes. Expand urban greening, shading and nature-based solutions to reduce cooling demand
• Reducing Air Conditioning Emissions – Accelerate the phase-out of HFC refrigerants, in line with the EU’s revised F-Gas Regulation. Implement bans on F-gases in cooling equipment and set minimum temperature limits for air conditioning in public buildings
• Preparing the Workforce – Develop mandatory training and certification for natural refrigerant technologies and passive cooling solutions to address labour shortages
• Enhancing Public Awareness – Treat heat as a major public health risk and improve communication to drive behavioural adaptation.

Facts at a glance

• The United Kingdom is warming faster than the global average, with 2025 recorded as the hottest year on record.

• Heat-related excess deaths already range from 1,400 to 3,000 annually and could rise to 10,000 per year by 2050 under a 2 degrees C warming scenario.

• More than 50% of UK homes currently face overheating risks, a figure set to rise to 90% by 2050 without action.

• Air conditioning expansion risks locking the United Kingdom into decades of additional emissions from energy use and fluorinated greenhouse gases, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are hundreds to thousands of times more potent than CO₂.

• Natural refrigerants (e.g., propane, CO₂, ammonia) offer sustainable, low-emission alternatives to F-gases, but require urgent policy support.