Pielke Jr.: Europe’s Deadly Aversion to Air Conditioning: ‘Tens of thousands die in European summers for want of a technology the rest of the rich world takes for granted’

Figure 1. Annual number of days with at least ‘strong heat stress’ (UTCI ≥ 32°C), 1950–2024, for Europe as defined by WMO Region VI (geographic Europe plus Greenland and parts of the Middle East and Caucasus — broader than the EU figures used elsewhere). Digitized from Copernicus / ESOTC 2024, Fig. S4.3 (ERA5-HEAT).

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If Europe had air conditioner penetration approaching levels of the U.S. or Japan, what would we expect the effects to be on heat mortality?

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This post on the human toll of Europe’s aversion to airconditioning was motivated by three essays:

• Make Europe Cool Again by Kevin Kohler details how French and Swiss rules deter installed AC.
• How Europe Became the World Champion of Heat Deaths by Maarten Boudry traces the aversion to a deeper hostility toward energy.
• Air conditioning: saving lives and accelerating net-zero by Ed Hezlet and Lauren Gilbert explain how U.K policies “all but ban” air conditioning, despite its benefits.

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Richest, coolest, deadliest
In his excellent post, Kohler well frames the issue: A continent that enjoys both comparative wealth and, by latitude, fewer hot days than most inhabited regions nonetheless records the world’s highest per capita heat-death rate. Age explains some of it — but the United States and Japan also have aging populations and yet have far fewer heat-related deaths.

A more important difference: air conditioning: European household penetration sits near ~19%, versus ~76% in North America and more than 90% in Japan.

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The math is simple. Today’s heat deaths reflect today’s level of AC coverage. Raise the coverage, and a share of those deaths are eliminated — in proportion to how protective AC is and how many more households gain it.2

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If Europe had AC penetration similar to North-America in the summer of 2022, then the continent would have avoided ~26,000 heat deaths in a summer like 2022 (range ~22,000–~31,000). Near-universal coverage is ~35,000. Even a 40 percent floor — below today’s Spanish or Italian levels — would save something like 6,000 to 8,000 lives a year.

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In his post, Kohler describes these polices as reflective of an energy-degrowth ideology — one that treats every kilowatt-hour as a vice rather than a virtue for improving human lives:

These regulations have not happened by accident, but they come from an ideology that emphasizes energy degrowth as the only viable solution to climate change. What that means in practice is that Europe has heavily prioritized insulation and passive cooling. In contrast, active cooling through an AC, even if running on clean energy, has been disincentivized because it requires energy.

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The larger problem is not technology or cost, but the fact that among many, cooling technologies have taken on a moral framing as a vice.