Europe's air conditioning aversion is dangerously out-of-sync with reality
- 14 hours ago
- 7 min read
As I write this roasting in Gare du Nord, western Europe is on day 12 of the roughest heatwave I can remember. Temperatures are about 15C higher than historical averages. Large parts of France have seen highs around 40C, it's been 36C+ across Switzerland, and it even touched 15C at the 3500 metre-high Jungfraujoch in the Alps.
Bordeaux, Berlin, or Baghdad - What's the difference?
Climate change is making heatwaves like this more common across the planet, but Europe is warming faster than anywhere except the Arctic, and in some regions may have already crossed the 2.5C threshold we hope to limit warming to globally. Beyond the statistics, the increase in extreme heat has been really noticeable over the course of my life. As a teenager, I remember there being hot summer days but I don't remember multiple weeks of furnace-like temperatures in May and June. Data backs this up - the number of heat stress days in Europe has doubled since the '90s.
Heat Stress Days in Europe
I, for one, am not at all built for this, nor are most people. Hundreds of people have died across Europe in this heatwave, and hundreds of millions more have had their quality of life severely impacted. It's not just that it's uncomfortable at home and outside; think of anyone with an outdoor job, kids in schools, people in hospitals and of course millions of under-valued animals and plants with nowhere to go.
Unfortunately, the only places for people to cool off in much of Europe are grocery stores, cars and if you're lucky, the gym. That's because...
AC is still quite rare in Europe
The best data I can find from the IEA indicates that about 20% of European households have air-conditioning. Of course, this varies by country. About 45% of Spanish and Italian households have AC compared to 25% in France, 5% in the UK, and 3% in Germany. The rate in Switzerland must be close to 0% if my experience is anything to go by.
Country | Households with air-conditioning |
South Korea | 98% |
Japan | 93% |
USA | 90% |
Canada | 68% |
Greece | 66% |
Italy | 48% |
Spain | 43% |
France | 25% |
Portugal | 12% |
Poland | 9% |
UK | 5% |
Germany | 3% |
Switzerland | 🫠 |
Europe is an outlier in the rich world. In most places, AC prevalence is directly correlated with wealth, but not so in Europe. In fact, poorer Europeans are more likely to have it than richer Europeans, partly because Europe's poorest countries are hot, but also because richer European countries actively discourage their citizens from getting air conditioning for environmental and cultural reasons.
There are few good reasons to keep up this discouragement but unfortunately, elite European cultural and political inertia is set against air conditioning. Having heard many anti-AC talking points in recent weeks, I want to push back.
The arguments against air-conditioning are wrong and costly
Broadly, I hear four common anti-AC arguments.
"it's bad for the environment"
"it makes you sick"
"we don't want to be like those glutenous Americans"
"we can get by with passive measures"
This is just based on my experience, mainly in Switzerland, but I'm aware that these attitudes are common in France and Germany as well. I think these ideas are mostly ridiculous and pretty dangerous, and I've tried to address them one-by-one.
Air conditioning produces emissions, but we're solving that
Air conditioning has a negative environmental impact today, but that's changing. It consumes electricity, some of which is generated by fossil fuels, and often uses greenhouse gasses as coolants. Factoring both in, AC accounts for about 3% of global emissions. This is equivalent to the 100 lowest emitting countries, so it's not nothing, but it's still far below transportation, heating, agriculture, and manufacturing.
Soon enough though, especially in Europe, the emissions of anything electric will decline to near zero. Europe already gets 2/3rd of its electricity from clean energy, and despite there being no formal plan for a 100% decarbonised European grid, some models estimate we may get there as soon as 2040. I suspect the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and the decoupling from the US, have made full decarbonisation an inevitability rather than just a policy goal. This is an incredible prospect that doesn't get enough attention. Air conditioning in Europe already draws from one of the world's cleanest grids, and once the European grid approaches 100% zero-emissions, cars, buildings, and air-conditioning, will be nearly emissions-free.
Air conditioning doesn't directly make you sick
Unclean air conditioning units can spread mould and germs, and cold, dry air can weaken the mucous membranes of the lungs, making one more susceptible to illness. There's also contested evidence that prolonged exposure to AC weakens the body's thermal adaptability. However, there isn't evidence of widespread negative health outcomes associated with air conditioning. Indeed, there is far, far more evidence that extreme heat is deadly and that air conditioning saves lives during heatwaves. Any illness indirectly caused by air conditioning can be largely mitigated by keeping air conditioning filters clean, and by keeping air-conditioned spaces just a few degrees cooler than the outside air, rather than frigid.
Just because the US does something, doesn't make it bad
Look, I am very willing to acknowledge that the US does a lot of things poorly. Its track record of launching wars, choosing presidents, and failing to tackle its emissions leaves much to be desired. I am, to my chagrin when crossing the border, on the record as a critic of the country's current leadership.
Just because a country has an obnoxious government or a culture you don't like though, doesn't mean that everything it does is bad. Alongside its flaws, the US has given the world countless wonders, from rock-n-roll, to airplanes, to the internet. We would all be worse off if we rejected things by association with America, and I think this air-conditioning is a prime example of this. Americans, despite living in hotter places than Europeans, do not die in large numbers during heatwaves, and hundreds of millions of them are able to live and work in greater comfort in hot climates because air conditioning is widespread. We can adopt this aspect of American society without adopting less desirable elements, like gun-culture, car-dependence, or a fentanyl crisis.
When I hear Europeans criticising Americans for using too much AC, what often detect under the service is a level of resentment and judgment that, sadly, I find is becoming more common as Trump and his ilk further trash the country's reputation and export chaos. Despite the county's shortcomings, it's worth remembering that there are millions of good Americans making common-sense choices. Staying cool in extreme heat is one of them.
Passive cooling works, but isn't enough in extreme heat
Passive cooling refers to the use of low- or no-energy strategies to keep buildings and spaces cool. This can cover everything from blocking sunlight with awnings and shutters, constructing buildings with good insulation, painting surfaces white to reflect heat, or planting more trees to increase shade cover.
Passive cooling measures are effective and important, and European cities have a lot of room to improve in this regard. I'd particularly like to see them learn from NYC's White-Roofing Programme, which helps building owners paint roofs with heat-reflective white coating, or from Phoenix's experiments with whiter road paving materials.
Image Left: NYC Dept of Small Business Services - Image Right: Fox10 Phoenix
Passive measures however, only work up to a point. Sustained extreme heat, as Europe has seen this month, pushes indoor air temperatures to unhealthy levels no matter how thick the walls or how white the building. The hottest parts of Europe understand this. Greece, Italy, and Spain - all countries who know how to build light-coloured, thick-walled buildings - have the highest rates of household air-conditioning in Europe.
Moreover, we should remember that passive heat mitigation is far easier to implement in new buildings, but the vast majority of the buildings on this continent are older and were built for a colder climate, with the goal of keeping heat in, not out. We simply cannot paint or shade our way out of 40C temperatures in Paris, London, Berlin, or Zürich. We should do those things anyway, because those interventions will help a lot with moderate heat, but we should view air conditioning as a complementary technology to help us through the hottest, deadliest periods of the year.
Opposing Air Conditioning is Dangerous
Opposing air conditioning, both rhetorically and through policy, is not just frustrating to me, it's dangerous to all of us.
On the one hand, heat literally kills. The World Health Organisation estimates that 200,000 Europeans died of heat-related causes over the last 4 years. These deaths are mostly preventable but in this sense, we seem content to treat extreme heat the way the US treats gun violence - as a public health crisis to tolerate rather than solve.
On the other hand, anti-AC politics is terrible and hands the far right an easy win. Many Europeans want AC, particular those in the countries experiencing the fastest warming. Yet many green-oriented politicians and media figures continue to chastise this sentiment for the reasons I outlined above. Europe's right-wing populists are not stupid and sense an opportunity. The far-right National Rally in France and Swiss People's Party in Switzerland have both proposed making it easier for people to install home air conditioning systems. It is, in my opinion, ridiculous to give these parties a bigger path to power simply to oppose something that improves human life and for which the environmental impact can be addressed.
The reality of extreme heat is quickly changing things
We are in for a rough century of heat. Europe is going to get hotter and hotter, and despite my frustrations with current prevailing attitudes towards air conditioning, I expect it will be come far more prevalent over the coming years. The IEA expects the number of AC units in Europe to double by 2050.
Image: OurWorldinData
My hope is that as a continent, we can learn to accept this life-saving, comfort-enabling technology, to encourage greater efficiency in its use, and to one day accept much grander technological interventions to begin addressing the root causes of climate change and extreme heat.
