Many benefits are associated with "cool roofs" and the most publicized of these pertain to private benefits accrued by the property owner.
Other research suggests that increased albedo (reflectivity) will directly affect the mechanisms of global warming, and in the words of one researcher, "cooling the planet by reducing urban albedo through white and other cool roofs is a direct effect, much larger and immediate than the 2nd-order cooling from reduced CO2 from reduced" air conditioning use. If widely deployed, white roofs and "cool roofs and cooler pavements can raise urban albedo by 10%. This directly drops the global average temperature by ˜0.05 /deg C. Though small compared to a likely 3 /deg C rise by 2060, an immediate drop of 0.05 /deg C represents a reprieve in global warming of 1 year, and represents avoiding a year's current annual world emissions" of carbon dioxide.
