Summer is coming: what Game of Thrones can teach us about the upcoming heat crisis

Theory of Change

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Summer is coming: what Game of Thrones can teach us about the upcoming heat crisis<br>Series: Climate Change | Policy Brief

Theory of Change<br>May 03, 2026

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There is a particular kind of political failure that recurs across history, and that storytellers, from Tolstoy to George R.R. Martin, seem to understand better than the institutions themselves. Game of Thrones is perhaps the most vivid recent example. In it, the existential threat is not the political intrigue consuming the Seven Kingdoms, it is the army of the dead advancing from the north, ignored by rulers too absorbed in their own rivalries to coordinate against it. The warning has been issued. The threat is real. The window to prepare is closing. And yet the institutions that should be responding are locked in their separate agendas, each defending their own domain, none of them owning the problem that falls between. That problem, in our case, is not white walkers. It is the humble air conditioners and cold chains keeping our food and medicines from getting spoiled, and their effects the climate.<br>The threats of unregulated refrigeration on global warming is not unacknowledged. First, Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the synthetic refrigerants at the heart of most cooling systems, are widely considered as the most potent greenhouse gases known (High GWP). Second, cooling systems themselves are known for being highly energy-intensive. International treaties administering the refrigerant transition away from HFCs, and the energy-efficient regulations do exist. Yet, the mechanism coordinating the response to both pieces of the threat is cruelly missing. The environment ministry holds the refrigerant mandate. The energy ministry holds the efficiency standards. The finance ministry holds the procurement rules. And the window, this rare and ephemeral moment during which reformulating the global product range of cooling equipment could be done at minimal incremental cost, is closing while they govern in parallel.<br>Winter, in the show, does eventually come. The question Game of Thrones never quite answered, and that this piece tries to, is whether the warning arrives in time to matter. The answer turns out to be less about political will than about institutional architecture.<br>This piece is based on a policy brief (available upon request). Subscribe for more.

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The refrigerant transition is needed but misses half the problem

The hotter it gets, the more we cool. The more we cool, the hotter it gets.<br>The world is starting to suffocate. In the summer of 2024, Dubai, Doha, and Riyadh were ranked among the cities with the most dangerous heat on the planet. Temperatures across the Gulf regularly exceeded 45°C (113°F). In 2025 in the UAE, August peaks reached 51.8°C (125°F), a full degree higher than the previous year's record. Projections suggest Gulf summer temperatures could exceed 55°C (131°F) by the end of the century under a business-as-usual scenario. In India too, 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1901. At least 37 cities recorded temperatures above 45°C (113°F), with heat stress projected to cost India 4.5% of GDP and 35 million jobs by 2030 if current trends continue. Across both regions, the response to heat is the same: more cooling, using more refrigerants, driving higher temperatures, requiring even more cooling. A response that creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop between cooling and global warming.<br>To break the loop, governments are focused on the refrigerant transition.<br>Scientists had identified this cooling feedback loop dynamic back in the early 1990s. Negotiations to address HFC emissions began in earnest in the late 2000s, and in 2016 197 countries quietly signed one of the most effective international climate agreements ever negotiated: the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The amendment tackles cooling’s direct emissions and commits governments to phasing down HFCs by 80% to 85% by mid-century. If the Kigali Amendment is fully implemented, it is estimated to avoid up to 0.5°C of warming by 2100, making it one of the largest contributors toward keeping the 1.5°C target alive.<br>But the refrigerant transition is only a fraction of the journey to sustainable cooling.<br>While reducing HFCs is essential, it addresses only one dimension of cooling’s climate impact. The other is energy. Cooling is already the single largest electricity end-use in buildings globally, representing a significant 10% of global electricity demand. This share is expected to nearly triple by mid-century. Notably, this growth is concentrated in countries where grids are the most carbon-intensive. As cooling demand grows in these markets, the electricity required to meet that demand will produce substantial indirect emissions.<br>So much so that this growth risks offsetting a significant share of the savings in direct...