Europe’s Hot Take on Air Conditioning

Illustrated by Mara Chintea

A Tale of Two Continents

Living without centralized air conditioning is a kind of torture many North Americans simply cannot fathom. Just about every indoor public space is a refuge from the heat; convenience stores, libraries, schools, even public transport. And with increasing temperatures, it is not something that should be taken for granted. 

Just across the Atlantic, however, is the fastest-warming continent on the planet; a continent that has never relied on air conditioning because they simply did not need to. For decades, the absence of AC was treated as a quirk of European life; where a hand fan or a linen outfit would suffice the heat of a hotter than usual afternoon. But now that Europe has experienced the most brutal heatwave in its recorded history, politicians across the continent are going head to head with their opponents on how to deal with the ever pressing issue of rising temperatures. 

Anti-AC 

The last two weeks of this past June have been record breaking in terms of temperatures as well as deaths recorded across Europe, with temperatures climbing up to the mid 40’s. Now, Europeans are not oblivious to air conditioning; which begs the question: why has Europe evaded AC for so long?

Centuries ago, when infrastructure was being developed, no one anticipated temperatures to rise the way they have. With Europe historically having harsh winters, buildings were made to welcome heat; thick, clay or brick walls and small windows. Southern Europe took a different approach out of necessity by building with the sun in mind from the start: shaded streets, stone that stays cool even under direct light. But both attempts to accommodate for the climate are now buckling; at least 12000 excess deaths across nine European countries were reported during the heatwave in June. And since the buildings were constructed centuries ago, most buildings are not equipped to sustain the more recent AC technology. 

Energy costs associated with air conditioning are far more expensive in Europe than in Canada or the U.S due to the continent's long time reliance on imported energy rather than domestic supply, leaving it exposed to global price swings. The dependence became impossible to ignore since Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring across the continent in 2022, where governments had to roll out emergency subsidies and rebates because the increase was so sudden. Wages across the EU have failed to keep up with the soaring costs of energy as well, making AC out of arms reach for just over a third of Europeans, who say they simply can not afford running the appliance in their homes.

The cherry on top, though sure to shift after the recent heat, is that Europeans have long held the notion that air conditioning is a distinctively American way of living. Viewing it as excessive and inconsiderate of the environment, many also hold the belief that breathing in the air emitted by ACs is bound to cause illness. While this attitude may come off as holier-than-thou, it is worth noting that Europeans spend more time outdoors than the typical Canadian or American, hence why AC never became a default expectation. 

Rules to be Cool 

In Geneva, Switzerland, a medical certificate is required to install AC due to strict energy laws. In the UK, low adoption can be attributed to the lengthy process where rejections come down to how the unit looks; ugly units are a no-go. In Paris, France, anyone living within 500 feet of a historical monument needs approval from a heritage body before installing a visible unit. Which, in a historical city like Paris, is just about everyone. These processes are so tedious that many are deterred from even applying, having already guessed the answer. 

The EU is legally bound to reach climate neutrality by 2050, with emissions cut by at least 55% by 2030, and AC is widely viewed as working directly against this goal. But now, countries are faced with a burning dilemma: either they loosen up on the rules, or let people endure the heat. The fight over AC comes down to a much older argument: individual comfort versus collective responsibility. 

France

Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, a right winged political party, has promised a nationwide plan to install AC in millions of homes, financed through interest free government loans. It’s a good line. It also raises an obvious question: where was this urgency before people started dying? Le Pen’s party was among the last major forces in French politics to even acknowledge climate change was real, so a sudden 20 billion euro appetite for climate adaptation looks less like conviction and more like opportunism wearing conviction’s clothes. 

On the other side stands Jean-Luc Melechon, leader of La France Insoumise, who rejected the plan outright, arguing that mass AC installation is not a real fix, it just makes the underlying problem worse. His actual solution is to retrofit buildings and implement better insulation; which is the right kind of thinking, albeit slow paced. Even Melenchon has carved out exceptions for hospitals and schools, which says something about how far ‘no AC at all’ actually holds once people are at risk. 

Germany 

Germany's government has taken a back seat on AC. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition has treated heat protection as a local problem, not a federal one, insisting states and cities should handle it, with Berlin only playing a “supporting role”. At the same time, his government has cut funding for municipal climate adaptation, even as this summer's heatwave pushed hospitals and emergency services to their limits. 

The Alternative for Germany has not stayed quiet. The far right party has accused politicians of “sacrificing” German lives to climate ideology, blaming energy efficiency rules for deaths. But the accusation is a recent conversation: just a year before this summer’s record heat, the AfD’s own health spokesperson was dismissing rising heat deaths as government-manufactured panic. Once the death toll became too large to explain away, the party reversed course completely.

The pressure for real action has come from elsewhere. Green Party leader Katharina Droge called for an immediate cooling program to air-condition hospitals, care homes, daycares, and schools, a concrete plan neither the government nor the AfD has matched. Meanwhile, only about 6% of German households have AC at all, one of the lowest rates in Europe. 

The UK

In the middle of the heat, a council in Camden ordered a homeowner to remove an AC unit they had already installed. The reasoning? Under Net Zero building rules, part of the Labour government's broader climate agenda, AC is treated as a last resort, only allowed once “passive cooling”, fans, open windows, had been tried first. The homeowner won on appeal, but only after proving they already had solar panels. In other words, staying cool legally came down to how green your other purchases were. 

That story became ammunition for the Conservative opposition against Labour’s Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, the minister actually responsible for the UK’s climate policy. Miliband has pushed billions into heat pump grants while leaving AC-specific funding largely untouched. Conservative MP Richard Holden accused him of effectively telling the country to suffer for the sake of hitting climate targets, arguing that China emits twice the UK’s carbon per person while still building coal plants, so Britain's sacrifice barely moves the needle globally. Miliband and the Labour government have not offered a public response to the Camden case specifically, leaving the criticism largely unanswered. 

A Non- EU perspective: Switzerland

The right-wing Swiss People's Party pushed to remove hospitals, care homes, schools, and small residential units from the permit process entirely. The Greens rejected it, arguing it ignores the actual problem and simply encourages more energy-heavy cooling instead of real fixes. Geneva’s own energy minister broke from the canton’s usual stance, saying AC “shouldn’t be demonised,” and is now looking at simplifying the approval process. 

When it came time to spend money, Geneva did not pick either side. It committed 1.25 billion francs to renovate 300 public buildings by 2037, half of them schools, betting on better airflow and more trees instead of a mass AC rollout. One state councillor called going all-in on AC “nonsense”. 

Picking a Side

Across these countries, the same thing keeps happening: whoever is out of power demands fast action, and whoever is in charge stays cautious. Advocating for a cause does not cost a government anything; but reversing a rule and having it backfire, a blackout, a broken promise, does. 

When it boils down to whether someone agrees with AC or not, they immediately get typecasted into a left or right wing box. Considering all anyone wants to do is stay safe from the sun or protect the planet, it is an awkward place to land. People who disagree with right wing policies on almost everything else find themselves leaning right on this one issue, simply because they want to be able to cool down. A piece in the LabourList, warned the left party is walking into the same trap France fell into, worried that its own voters, people who do not align with the right on much else, are starting to see more value in AC than in the party’s stance against it and drifting rightward because of it. Wanting to be cool should not say anything about what someone believes on immigration or taxes; but right now, it does. 

At the end of the day, nobody in this fight is actually wrong. The people living through record heat are not wrong to want relief, and the people worried about the planet are not wrong to worry; and many may find themselves between. What is left in question: how much heat is acceptable to endure today, for a future that is not guaranteed to look any cooler? Until answered, the debate over a small metal box is going to keep standing in for a much bigger one.