This year’s heatwaves have made it hard to ignore what’s becoming the new normal in Europe and beyond: extreme heat that lasts longer, hits harder, and shows up more often.
As temperatures keep rising, cooling is no longer just about comfort: it’s becoming essential for people’s health and everyday life in many regions.
The technologies we rely on to stay cool – air-conditioning, refrigeration, and heat pumps – often use fluorinated gases (F-gases), which are greenhouse gases.
The European heat pump sector is currently transitioning to alternative refrigerants with less potential impact on global warming in line with the EU’s revised F-Gas Regulation and the EU climate targets.
How are other continents and countries doing this transition?
That’s where the new EU-funded project IMPACT-F (Integrated Mitigation Platform for Assessing Climate Targets for F-gases) comes in.
Launched in June 2026, IMPACT-F brings together 14 partners from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America, including research institutes, universities, industry groups and international organisations like EHPA, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR).
Coordinated by London South Bank University, the project is built around one main idea: give policymakers better tools to understand what’s really going on.
At its core, IMPACT-F is developing a global modelling platform that helps countries explore different policy choices concerning F-Gases and see what they mean in practice – whether that’s on emissions or energy demand. Right now, a lot of countries simply don’t have the data or modelling capacity to do this in a joined-up way. The aim is to change that.
The platform will let users compare scenarios, look at cooling demand across regions, and understand the trade-offs between expanding access to cooling and cutting emissions. That matters more and more as governments try to juggle multiple goals at once: keeping people cool, improving efficiency, and meeting climate targets.
IMPACT-F is closely linked to big international frameworks like the Kigali Amendment, the Paris Agreement, and the Global Cooling Pledge – signed by 72 countries and aiming to cut cooling-related emissions by 68% by 2050. The challenge now is turning those high-level commitments into practical decisions on the ground.
Alongside the modelling work, the project will also focus on training and capacity building, so that policymakers and stakeholders can actually use the tools and insights in real-world decision-making.
Over the next 36 months, the project will move from design to delivery, following its kickoff meeting in London, where partners aligned on priorities and next steps.
At a time when cooling demand is rising fast, and global warming is only intensifying, IMPACT-F will make sure that response is aligned with our climate goals.
Heat pumps already offer a net climate win even for cooling, since they also displace fossil fuel heating, and as the sector moves away from high-GWP refrigerants in line with EU targets. IMPACT-F can help ensure that transition, worldwide, with solid data and modelling.
The project’s website and social media channels will launch soon.
Questions?
Reach out to Mélanie Auvray at melanie.auvray@ehpa.org
