Why a lack of air conditioning can be deadly
Fuel poverty – it’s a term we in Britain are familiar with. It conjures up images of pensioners struggling to stay warm in winter, or families huddled under blankets, forced to choose between heating and eating.
Now, as temperatures soar across the planet, billions of people in cities from Bogota to Bangkok are dealing with the same but opposite problem: they can’t afford to keep cool.
The world has never been hotter – just this week, the record for the hottest day was broken for the second day in a row, when the world average surface temperature reached 17.15 degrees.
That might not sound particularly high – but the global average has been pushed up by lethal 40 and 50 degree heat waves in places like India, Pakistan, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
There is a solution: air conditioning.
But for poor families in Africa and Asia who suffer the burden of the world’s hottest climates, the price tag for air conditioning is often just too high. Even the smallest units cost a minimum of £400 to install, before the problem of the monthly electricity bill comes in.
One former Telegraph correspondent in Pakistan estimates his monthly bill for cooling his home office could climb as high as £1,000 a month.
Air conditioning does create environmental problems – it literally pumps hot air into the atmosphere, and it’s a vicious cycle – cities that use it incidentally heat up even more, making its need more pressing.
More than 90 per cent of households in the US have air conditioning, and Europe is following suit – some 130 million air-con units were installed in the region this year.
In sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, fewer than four per cent of homes are air conditioned and almost all of them are high-income households.
Telegraph 30 July 2024
Air-Conditioning Gives Us a False Sense of Security
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/06/air-conditioning-gives-us-false-sense.html
Air conditioners are responsible for around 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and extreme heat will send that share higher.
In 2050, as much energy will be used for world air conditioning as the whole of China uses today to produce all its electricity.
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2023/06/air-conditioners-are-responsible-for.html
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