Europe’s Air-Conditioning Revolution Is Coming

If you’re sitting behind drawn blinds during yet another scorching European heat wave and weighing whether to finally invest in an air conditioner, you have plenty of company. In late June, as temperatures surged well past 40 degrees Celsius across parts of Europe, shoppers in France literally pushed their way into stores to grab portable fans and AC units before shelves emptied. Such scenes are poised to become far more frequent. As global temperatures climb, the appetite for cooling is expanding rapidly. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that two-thirds of households worldwide could own an air conditioner by 2050.

Politicians, predictably, have turned air-conditioning into a flashpoint in broader ideological battles. Far-right figure Marine Le Pen has pledged to expand AC access across France if her party takes power, while British Conservatives vowed to scrap net-zero rules that limit AC installation in new buildings. On the left, critics argue that air-conditioning would primarily benefit the wealthy rather than those most vulnerable to heat, and could lock Europe into the same high-energy cooling cycle that defines the US and parts of Asia. Currently, only about 20 percent of European households have AC (and just 4 percent in the UK), compared with roughly 90 percent in the US, where electricity is significantly cheaper.

In Europe, air-conditioning is no longer a luxury,it is increasingly a necessity. It helps adults stay productive during extreme heat and allows children to focus in poorly ventilated classrooms. It enables people to sleep when the air remains stiflingly warm long after sunset. It can even save lives. One research team estimated that air-conditioning prevented nearly 200,000 premature deaths among people over 65 in 2019 alone.

Europe is warming faster than any other continent. Countries once known for mild summers now face more frequent and intense heat waves. Research by Nicole Miranda and her colleagues at the University of Oxford suggests that nations such as the UK, Switzerland, Norway, and Finland could see some of the largest relative increases in heat exposure and cooling demand if global warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

“We will need more cooling to protect people,” says Miranda, a senior lecturer in engineering and carbon reduction manager. “The question is how to provide it in a way that is efficient, equitable, and smart. Not by panic-buying inefficient, energy-intensive portable ACs.”

June’s record-breaking heat wave offered a preview of what’s to come. In northern Europe, homes and offices built to retain heat during long winters turned into ovens. A recent report from the UK’s Climate Change Committee warns that by mid-century, over 90 percent of existing homes could overheat during severe heat waves. Even in southern Europe, centuries-old architectural adaptations,thick stone walls, white-painted façades, blinds, and small windows designed to block the sun,are reaching their limits. People across Europe are already fed up with extreme heat.

But simply adding more air-conditioning is not the full solution,at least not in its current form. Air-conditioning is built on a paradox: The machines that cool us also heat the planet. The electricity they consume already accounts for roughly 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, slightly more than the aviation industry. “We expect cooling to become one of the biggest drivers of electricity demand growth worldwide, along with data centers,” says Fabian Voswinkel, an energy-efficiency policy analyst at the IEA. With new units being installed worldwide every minute, electricity demand for space cooling could more than triple by 2050.