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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
European summers are getting brutally hot. So why is air conditioning
so rare?
By Laura Paddison, Mitchell McCluskey, CNN
Updated:
9:55 AM EDT, Wed July 2, 2025
Source: CNN
A is gripping many parts of Europe, leaving millions of people
struggling to adapt to punishing, record-breaking temperatures. Heat
persists even at night, with temperatures in some places not dipping
much below 90 degrees.
There is little respite. Air conditioning is very rare in European
homes. Many residents are being forced to ride out the searing heat
with the help of electric fans, ice packs and cold showers.
But Europe hasn’t approached heat in the same way as the historically
hotter United States. While of US homes have air conditioning, in
Europe it’s around 20%, and some countries have much lower rates. In
the United Kingdom, only of homes have cooling systems — many of
which are portable AC units. In Germany, the figure is .
As climate change drives more , which arrive earlier and earlier, some
are questioning why wealthy European countries have been seemingly
reluctant to adopt air conditioning — especially as the heat takes an
.
A big part of the reason is many European countries historically had
little need for cooling, especially in the north. Heat waves have
always happened but rarely reached the prolonged high temperatures
Europe now regularly endures.
“In Europe… we simply don’t have the tradition of air
conditioning… because up to relatively recently, it hasn’t been a
major need,” said Brian Motherway, head of the Office of Energy
Efficiency and Inclusive Transitions at the International Energy
Agency.
This meant AC has traditionally been seen as a luxury rather than a
necessity, especially as installing and running it can be expensive.
Energy costs in many European countries are than in the US, while
incomes tend to be lower.
Energy prices have even further since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022,
as the EU takes steps to on Russian oil and gas. Though prices have
since the initial energy crisis of 2022, the cost of powering an AC
unit may still be out of reach for many Europeans.
Then there’s the architecture.
Some buildings in hotter, southern European countries were built for
the heat. They have thick walls, small windows that keep the sun from
beaming inside and are designed to maximize air flow. This has helped
keep them cooler and lessened the perceived need for artificial
cooling.
In other parts of Europe, however, homes have not been designed with
heat in mind.
“We haven’t been in the habit … of thinking about how we stay
cool in the summer. It really is a relatively recent phenomenon,”
said Motherway.
Buildings on the continent tend to be older, built before AC technology
became mainstream. In England, which has just endured its hottest June
on record, one in six homes were .
It can be harder to outfit older homes with central cooling systems,
although far from impossible, Motherway said.
Sometimes a bigger problem is red tape, said Richard Salmon, the
director of the Air Conditioning Company based in the UK.
UK authorities will often reject applications to install AC “on the
basis of the visual appearance of the outdoor condenser unit,
especially in conservation areas or on listed buildings,” he said.
There is also a policy angle. Europe has pledged to become “climate
neutral” by 2050 and a sharp increase in air conditioners will make
climate commitments even harder to reach.
Not only are air conditioners energy guzzlers, but they also push heat
outside. A looking at AC use in Paris found they could increase the
outside temperature between about 2 and 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2
Fahrenheit). This impact is especially severe in Europe’s generally
dense cities.
Some countries have measures to limit air conditioning. In 2022, Spain
introduced rules stipulating AC in public places should be set no lower
than 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) to save energy.
Attitudes and concerns around AC in Europe are changing, however, as
the continent becomes a climate hotspot, warming at twice the rate of
the rest of the world.
The continent faces a dilemma: embrace energy-intensive air
conditioning, with the negative climate impacts it brings, or find
alternative ways to cope with its ever-hotter future.
“Our homes need to be resilient not just to the cold, but to the
increasingly brutal heat,” said Yetunde Abdul, director at UK Green
Building Council.
There are already clear signs uptake is increasing in Europe, as in
many parts of the world. An IEA report found the number of air
conditioning units in the EU is likely to rise to 275 million by 2050
— more than double the 2019 figure.
The Air Conditioning Company’s Salmon says he has seen demand for air
conditioning skyrocket. “Over the last five years, residential
enquiries have more than tripled. This heatwave in particular has sent
things through the roof… People just can’t function when they’re
boiling at 3 a.m.”
Some politicians are pushing for a sweeping uptake of AC.
France’s far-right politician Marine Le Pen has to implement a
“major air conditioning infrastructure plan,” while criticizing the
“so-called French elites” who encourage others to seek alternative
cooling methods while they “obviously enjoy air-conditioned cars and
offices.”
But experts warn AC may be a quick reprieve from scorching temperatures
but it gobbles up energy, most of which still comes from planet-heating
fossil fuels.
Using fossil fuel-powered AC increases planet-heating pollution, which
in turn increases temperatures, fueling “a vicious cycle of worsening
climate change,” said Radhika Khosla, an associate professor at the
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of
Oxford.
The reality is mindsets around AC are undoubtedly going to change in
Europe, as extreme heat — and its health impacts — increases,
IEA’s Motherway said.
The challenge will be making sure countries have strong regulations
around the efficiency of cooling systems to reduce their potentially
huge climate impact.
“Because every air conditioner sold today locks in energy use and
emissions for the next decade or two decades. So it’s important we
get this right first time.”
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