Air-Conditioning Should Be a Human Right in the Climate Crisis
We need to protect vulnerable people from killer heat without destroying the
environment
A record-breaking heat
wave is sweeping South Asia, threatening hundreds of
millions of people with deadly temperatures well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. As
the world heats up, billions of people need air-conditioning. This 120-year-old
technology used to be considered a luxury, but in the age of climate change, it is a
necessity for human survival. Understandably, this has created anxiety over
the climate threat of a world overrun with ACs.
But the coming boom in air-
conditioning is an essential shift toward reducing the enormous gap in cooling
availability that exists between rich and poor people and nations—and toward
producing a more equitable world.
Of the two billion AC units currently in use across the globe, the majority are heavily
concentrated in wealthy countries in North America and East Asia (with Europe,
which generally has a milder climate, in a distant third). In the hottest regions of the
world, AC ownership is just 12 percent compared to more than 90 percent in the
U.S. and Japan. But as populations become wealthier and temperatures continue to
rise, this trend will change—dramatically. According to the International Energy
Agency (IEA), the world is projected to add another four billion AC units by 2050,
largely driven by demand in emerging economies such as India and Indonesia. Air
conditioners
can be quite energy-intensive, particularly if inefficient models are
used, meaning these countries will need a lot more electricity. In fact, AC could
account for 20 to 44 percent of the peak load in India’s power grid by 2050. If this
power is supplied by fossil fuels—and in areas of highest growth, including India
and Indonesia, it usually is—the increase will have substantial impacts on global
greenhouse gas emissions.
These projections are scary. Could the need for cooling wind up cooking the planet?
Actually, this is the wrong question to ask. Ditching AC is not an option, and it
should not be the goal either. Instead of a threat, this should be seen as an opportunity
to explore greener cooling technology and encourage
the adoption of renewable
energy. Meanwhile air-conditioning has the potential to equalize conditions between
different countries as an essential part of climate justice. In the temperate climates
of the northern U.S. and northern Europe, lack of cooling is usually a summer
inconvenience. In the tropics, heat waves last longer, reach higher temperatures and
are far more deadly. Last year citizens of Niamey, the capital of Niger located on the
edge of the Sahara Desert, suffered through 100-degree-F heat for 174 days. In
Basra, Iraq, the number of 100-degree-F days was 168; in Mumbai, the number was
62.
To understand what such heat waves mean for people physiologically, researchers
use the “wet-bulb temperature,” which combines both heat and humidity to account
for how the human body experiences extreme heat.
At a wet-bulb temperature
of about 90 degrees F, labor becomes unsafe, and if it climbs past 95 degrees F, the
body can no longer cool itself, leading to illness and even death. If global
temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.5 degrees F), as some projections show,
South Asia could experience more than twice as many unsafe-labor and life-
threatening temperatures than it does today. Limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees
C (about 2.5 degrees F) will halve this exposure, but millions in the region will still
be vulnerable to extreme heat stress. This isn’t a hypothetical future problem. The
past nine years have all been among the top 10 warmest on record. This year heat
waves came earlier than ever for South Asia, setting a March record. Heat waves in
India have caused the death of at least 6,500 people since 2010. In 2015 alone about
3,500 people died in India and Pakistan during the fifth
deadliest heat wave ever
recorded.
While mortality rates skyrocket during heat waves, there are other detrimental
impacts to consider. High temperatures have been shown to disrupt labor
productivity, causing considerable economic losses in
South and Southeast Asia,
sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. In 2020 an estimated 295 billion potential
work hours were lost globally consequent to extreme heat, with the greatest impacts
in the agriculture sector of poor countries. The resulting loss of income can be
devastating for workers.
How can the world avert this disaster? First, by accepting that adequate cooling is
an urgent human need in a warming climate. The disruption caused by extreme heat
will keep growing, and access to equitable cooling technology will be necessary to
ensure the survival and economic prosperity of the billions of people living in
tropical regions. In fact, the longtime prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew,
considered air-conditioning the single most important invention for his country’s
development.
Manufacturers and governments must also innovate to develop affordable and
efficient AC technology using refrigerants with lower climate impact. According to
the IEA, today’s average AC units are only 10 percent more efficient than those sold
in 2010—but effective policy and technology can double the efficiency of AC units
and reduce cooling energy demand by 45 percent by 2050. To drive up efficiency,
the practice of dumping older—and thus less efficient and more environmentally
harmful—models in poor countries should be restricted.
In addition to setting
efficiency standards, governments (along with philanthropic organizations and
manufacturers) must invest in driving down the cost of higher-quality air conditioner
models. Switching to alternative refrigerants can also reduce cooling emissions
significantly in the coming decades.
Now is the time to build cleaner and more equal energy systems.
For instance,
demand for cooling is shifting to tropical regions that are ideal for solar power
generation, and daytime temperatures correlate closely with solar peaks. This means
that AC units could be an important driver of demand at just the times when solar
generation is peaking. As a result, more solar power would actually get used during
peak hours, increasing the financial viability of the renewable energy sector across
the world. Air conditioner deployment should also be complemented by broader
efforts to reduce overall cooling energy demand. This means improving building
efficiency and exploring nonelectric cooling technologies where applicable. Cooling
does not have to blow the carbon budget. In fact, if leveraged correctly, it could be
a driver of equity, economic growth and the transition to clean energy.
