Europe’s Heatwave Crisis: The Air Conditioning Dilemma
AAs the afternoon heat reached a dizzying 41.7C in eastern Brandenburg on Sunday, bringing German temperatures to unprecedented highs, Mario, 65, took precautions but did not panic. Two years ago, a severe heatwave pushed him to buy a powerful device that few Germans have: an air conditioner.
The Shifting Climate of Comfort
“Summers are gradually getting warmer,” says this retired handyman from Neuzelle, on the German-Polish border, whose bungalow is now one of the 6% of German homes equipped with permanent air conditioning. “And as we get older, the heat becomes more difficult to bear.”
Europe is reeling from the worst heatwave on record and, as it prepares for the next round of scorching weather, its lack of air conditioning has been criticized more than any other solution that governments have been slow to promote. The emerging culture war has frustrated health experts who want more air conditioning for vulnerable groups but are wary of widespread adoption in private homes.
Balancing Solutions
“Much of European investment has rightly gone into longer-term solutions like shading, insulation and cooling centers, rather than mechanical cooling,” says Hans Kluge, head of the World Health Organization’s European office, who recommends nuanced adoption of air conditioning that protects those at high risk. “Both have a role.”
Lightning strikes Frankfurt in the middle of a record heatwave in Europe. Photograph: Matías Basualdo/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock
Adapting to Rising Temperatures
Adaptation efforts have reduced deaths by 75% from the type of heat that was considered extreme two decades ago, studies suggest, but heatwaves have gotten even hotter during that time. More than 200,000 people have died from heat in Europe over the past four years, according to WHO estimates, and calls for faster change are growing. June’s record heat threatens to kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people – well above the levels that worry countries like the United States, which is also facing a historic heatwave but uses air conditioning to cool 90% of its homes.
The Political Heat
Expert advice for putting air conditioning where people need it most – hospitals, care homes, schools and public transport – has support from across the political spectrum. But in recent days, accusations that the major parties are blocking air conditioning to save the environment have come to dominate the debate.
In the wake of Germany’s record heat, Marc Bernhard, construction spokesman for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), said his party would prevent people from being “sacrificed on the altar” of dominant climate ideology, such as energy efficiency ratings. “Climate hysteria leads to more heat-related deaths due to ideological construction errors, such as refraining from using air conditioning.”
This is a radical departure from the party’s views just a year ago, when its health spokesman, Martin Sichert, downplayed the death toll by dismissing the government’s “heat panic”. It also stands in stark contrast to the AfD’s vehement rejection of heat pumps, which three years ago became an unlikely enemy of the political right.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which fought against renovations to make buildings more energy efficient and sought to block wind turbines and solar panels, made air conditioning a priority while attacking policies aimed at stopping the planet from warming.
A Transatlantic Perspective
The tense debate in Europe has been stoked by commentators in the United States who portray Europe’s lack of air conditioning as evidence of a poor, misguided and overregulated continent. “Europeans should just install air conditioning,” reads text generated by a chatbot on X, boosted by Elon Musk and viewed nearly 20 million times. “The American approach to summer has always been correct.”
Air conditioning is standard in rich countries, from the United States to Japan to Australia, but only about 15 percent of the 3.5 billion people living in regions with high temperatures have one. As temperatures and incomes rise, global demand for cooling will explode. In Southeast Asia, the International Energy Agency expects the number of air conditioners to increase ninefold between 2020 and 2040 under current policies.
The Environmental Equation
Experts say there are downsides to air conditioning. Expelling hot air into surrounding streets can worsen the urban heat island effect and energy consumption increases the risk of power outages. But its climate impact in Europe is small and expected to decline further, with the continent consuming less than 30% fossil fuels for its electricity generation and more than a dozen countries considering eliminating them completely from power grids within a decade.
At the same time, although planning laws in some places have made it difficult to install air conditioning in private households, there is little evidence to suggest that red tape or climate concerns are the drivers of low adoption rates in Europe.
In fact, as carbon emissions have warmed the continent twice as fast as the global average, the extra heat has increasingly prompted people in Europe’s hottest regions to mechanically air-condition their homes. In Italy and Spain, the share of households equipped with air conditioning increased rapidly to more than half; while in France it rises to 24%, with up to 48% in the hot southern provinces and as little as 10% in the cool northern provinces.
A water cannon sprays tourists during a heatwave at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photography: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Germany’s Unique Position
In Germany, where the use of air conditioning is one of the lowest in Europe, partly due to a high proportion of renters, some owners say that even June’s record heat was not disruptive enough to justify the purchase. “We would consider installing air conditioning if the summers continue to get hotter, but when it’s just a few days we can tolerate it,” says Gabriele Werner, who works at the Neuzelle tourist office, near where the weekend heat was strongest.
When the Guardian visited Neuzelle and the neighboring district of Neissemünde, where almost one in two voters supported the AfD in the last election, the most common response to the searing weekend heat was apathy, accompanied by pockets of outright denial.
“Climate change is just a word that gets trumpeted,” says Reinhard Lange, a retired electrician whose 150-year-old house is near the Coschen weather station, which provisionally broke Germany’s national heat record on Sunday. “When I was a kid, it was this hot. It just wasn’t emphasized.”
Looking Ahead
Kluge says Europe’s strong emergency response during recent heat events helped save lives – with red alerts, school closures and the rapid opening of cooling centers – but more could be done to ensure regular contact with isolated elderly people, who account for most of the death toll. “The priority now is to ensure that air conditioning reaches people for whom it is a medical necessity, while continuing to build the infrastructure (trees, green roofs, cooler buildings) that protects everyone, including people who simply cannot install a unit in their home.”
Other experts went further, expressing support for air conditioning in public housing due to the growing inequality between those with air conditioning and those without, as well as the increase in socially harmful energy leaks.
“We currently focus a lot of our energy and water resources during heatwaves on cooling data centers,” says Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a climatologist at the University of Oxford who studies extreme heat. “Lives are more valuable to us than AI – or at least they should be, right?
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