Europe is burning. France recorded its hottest day since record-keeping began in 1947, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius in large parts of Spain, Italy and Germany. Schools have closed in France, Belgium and the UK. Rail operators canceled services because overhead power lines became loose and the tracks could bend in extreme heat, and hospitals such as the Frederick-Henry Mannheim facility canceled services. near paris Turned its air-conditioned waiting rooms into informal wards for patients who could not cope with the heat in their homes.
The heat wave, caused by the ‘heat dome’ effect that traps hot air over the continent, has been linked to hundreds of deaths, although officials say the total death toll is still not known.
Yet, despite years of warnings that heat waves would become more frequent, a wealthy Europe has been reluctant to embrace air conditioning. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), barely one in five homes in Europe has some kind of air conditioning, compared to nearly 90% in the US.
a cold continent
The most basic reason for this less use of air conditioning Coming to climate. Until recently, large parts of Europe had no need for cooling.
Historically, European cities have not seen extreme heat for long periods of time, so building codes developed across the block to retain heat during the harsh winter months. That legacy now works against European houses. The old buildings, with their thick walls and small windows, were built to retain heat, which was useful in winter but a liability in 40 °C June. Experts say new apartment blocks were often shaped by daylighting and energy-efficiency regulations, which rewarded large glazed facades without little consideration for summer heat gains. These glass towers essentially become greenhouses in extreme heat.
According to assessments by the World Meteorological Organization and the Copernicus Climate Change Service, Europe is the fastest warming continent on the planet, warming at about twice the global average rate.
Also read: Europe is ‘melting’: Record-breaking heat closed schools, thousands without electricity. top point
Permissions and costs
Households wishing to install AC units often hit a wall.
A standard split-air conditioner unit, commonly used in Indian homes, requires an external condenser, usually attached to the facade of a building.
However, throughout European cities, this requirement is linked to heritage and aesthetic regulations.
The director of a UK-based installation firm told CNN that authorities in Britain often reject applications because the look of an outdoor unit may not align with the aesthetics of a conservation or heritage area.
In Paris, similarly, heritage rules generally prevent residents from drilling into historic facades to fit AC units. The French capital is widely considered to have the most complex air conditioning permitting rules anywhere.
If permits are not a barrier, price may become a barrier. Chinese manufacturer Midea told CNN that fitting a unit in Europe could cost more than €1,000, putting it beyond many household budgets.
This cost would sit on top of Europe’s already high electricity prices, especially for industry, which is charged more. One user of a portable AC unit, which costs a few hundred pounds, told the BBC that if the air conditioning was on it would cost him about 22 pence per hour, or £5 a day.
The greener option, an air-to-air pump that heats in winter and cools in summer, typically costs £4,000 to £10,000 to install, even with a government grant of up to £7,500, the BBC reports. For low-income families, the math has long favored enduring a few uncomfortable weeks rather than spending more for air conditioning.
Further complicating this equation is the EU’s sweeping emissions-reduction program, which has set limits on what hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – powerful greenhouse gases – are allowed in the bloc, and aims to phase them out.
Differences in politics, attitudes and environment
Another European oddity is that air conditioning has been a subject of political division.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for a nationwide boost in air conditioning in France, saying: “The kind of extreme heat we are experiencing is killing people.” But his leftist rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon described the idea as misguided and warned that installing cooling units everywhere would deepen the climate crisis.
However, this debate is not a simple right versus left position.
According to advocacy group Shed the UK, demands for wider access to cooling could come from the political left as a public-health and equality issue, as well as from pro-growth conservatives citing comfort and productivity. Similarly, resistance to domestic AC units may arise from a conservative tendency to protect heritage buildings as well as environmentalists’ concern over greenhouse gas emissions.
French climatologist Christophe Cassou told AFP that reducing the question of a vote on air conditioning to a simple for or against would allow politicians to claim climate change adaptation without facing difficult questions about agriculture, power generation and the design of cities.
When politics isn’t partisan, unease about air conditioner use runs deep in Europe.
Thomas Chatterton Williams, in an article for The Atlantic titled ‘The Overlooked Reason Why Europe Doesn’t Have AC’, pointed to differences in cultural attitudes between Europe and America.
Americans regard temperature and physical discomfort as “challenges to be negotiated rather than conditions to be tolerated,” Williams wrote. However, to Europeans, the “ubiquity” of air conditioning in America is seen as “extravagance and pampering”. He added, “These are people who still carry with them the memories of war, occupation and extreme deprivation.”
Then again, environmental concerns can be considered part of this unease. Eight in 10 people in France consider air conditioning bad for the environment, according to the survey of more than 1,000 respondents cited by AFP.
That instinct is not irrational. The IEA estimates that cooling accounts for about 7% of global electricity demand. Data from the European Commission’s Eurostat also shows that energy used to cool buildings across the EU is set to increase by more than 15% in 2024 compared with the previous year, even as heating energy use has fallen, DW reports.
But the climate cost of an air conditioner largely depends on what powers it. For example, France gets about 70% of its electricity from nuclear plants, so running a unit there would cause little environmental harm compared to using a unit in a region that gets electricity from fossil fuels.
a change is happening
All the reasons for Europe’s reluctance to adopt air conditioning are changing rapidly, simply because heat waves are not a thing of the future.
Supermarket chain Carrefour said it sold 30,000 cooling units in a single afternoon last week, about a thousand times more than a normal day. Amazon’s AC sales have almost doubled compared to the same period last year. AC makers Samsung, Midea and Mitsubishi Electric all reported sales growth in France, Spain, the UK and Germany, with shipments in Spain and France up 108% this May compared to the same period last year.
The IEA estimates that the number of air conditioning units in the EU could more than double from 2019 levels to around 275 million by 2050. France has pledged €80 million to install cooling equipment in schools and nurseries, and the state of Berlin passed its first heating action plan last November.
However, researchers have warned against relying solely on air conditioning to escape the European heat.
A 2020 study in the journal Environmental Research Letters, led by Vincent Viguy of the French research institute CIRED, found that air conditioning units outside could make conditions worse on the roads. Its modeling for an area of ​​Paris found, “ACs cause an average increase of about 20 minutes per day in the time spent in high heat stress conditions on the streets.”
A recent CIRED simulation of a dense Lyon neighborhood found that facade-mounted units alone could increase local outdoor temperatures by 1.75 degrees Celsius, reports AFP.
Accordingly, experts say, cities need to adopt a holistic approach: air conditioning may still be essential, but urban settlements need to create more areas under greenery and turn to advanced engineering for infrastructure. Old toolkits – such as the use of shutters on windows and doors to block sunlight, insulation and ventilation – should also remain in the plans being envisioned.
