Global Cooling Pledge Assembly 2026 High-level Dinner Reception - Ms Grace Fu

1. Good evening. Congratulations for surviving four full days of work and endless speeches. You are indeed resilient. I hope you have enough energy left for just one final speech.

2. A big thank you to the UN Environment Programme, the Cool Coalition, our speakers and partners, and my colleagues at the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment. You have made this first Global Cooling Pledge Assembly a real success by keeping the conversations warm, even though our subject was cooling.

3. Over the past four days, we have exchanged experience, tested ideas and forged partnerships to strengthen heat resilience and sustainable cooling. I will close with three words - Innovation, Implementation and Friendship.

Innovation

4. First, innovation. We have seen how smarter technology, better design and small changes in behaviour can deliver cooling that works well, costs less and uses less energy.

5. Some innovations are physical: better building façades, reflective surfaces, passive design and district cooling. We can keep people comfortable without making the electricity meter run a marathon.

6. Innovation is also about how we work and live. Setting air-conditioners at 25°C, for example, can cut energy use, emissions and waste heat without sacrificing comfort. Singapore is just at the start of the campaign. We hope that more buildings will come on board. Ideally, we should have mechanical ventilation fan along with air conditioning. We hope the next time you visit Singapore, there will be more places with temperatures set at 25°C.

7. This Assembly has also initiated the Heat Resilience Roadmap for a Warming World — a practical framework to help countries and cities assess risks, set priorities and strengthen heat resilience in their own contexts. I am pleased that the UN Environment Programme and the Cool Coalition will keep developing the roadmap with countries and cities.

Implementation

8. Second, implementation. We now need to move from good ideas to policies, projects and investments at scale—from the laptop to the real world.

9. We have certainly been busy: five plenary sessions, ten Beat the Heat roundtables and training sessions, and four site visits. That is a lot of ground covered—quite literally. More importantly, these sessions helped turn broad priorities into practical pathways and showed how sustainable cooling can work in a dense, tropical city.

10. We also heard how countries are taking forward their National Cooling Action Plans and National Adaptation Plans. The message is clear: a plan needs an owner, funding and people who can deliver it.

Friendships

11. Third, partnership. This Assembly has brought governments, businesses, researchers, international organisations and philanthropies from many parts of the world together around a shared purpose. We have met many compatriots who share common interests and challenges in our search for cool solutions.

12. We also saw partnerships mobilise finance. Led by UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Cool Coalition, and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), the Nature for Cooling Challenge, which helps cities and developers harness nature to tackle extreme heat, is supported by a $3 million USD Global Environment Facility grant and complemented by co-financing. This initiative will help scale nature-based solutions, such as urban greenery, that reduce heat exposure and cooling demand.

13. UNEP and the Cool Coalition also introduced a new manufacturing platform to widen access to efficient cooling technologies and secure measurable commitments from manufacturers. Partnerships like these can move capital, technology and capability to where they are needed most—and accelerate delivery of the Global Cooling Pledge.

Closing

14. Ladies and Gentlemen, we come from different places and face different conditions, but our purpose is the same: to protect people from extreme heat, cut emissions from cooling, and keep our communities safe, liveable and resilient as the world warms.

15. Over these past few days, we have not only exchanged ideas; we have renewed old friendships and formed new ones. Across different countries, sectors and experiences, we have found common ground in our care for people and our hope for the future.

16. May the friendships strengthened here continue well beyond this Assembly, and may our common purpose keep bringing us together. After all, this week has shown that when cool people come together with cool ideas, we can make a real difference. With trust in one another and confidence in what we can achieve together, we can build a cooler, safer and more hopeful future for all.

17. Thank you.