As the afternoon heat hit a dizzying 41.7C (107F) in eastern Brandenburg on Sunday, breaking German temperature records, Mario, 65, took precautions but didn't panic. Two years ago, a fierce heatwave had prompted him to buy a device few Germans own: an air conditioning unit. “The summers are slowly getting warmer,” says the retired handyman in Neuzelle on the German-Polish border, whose bungalow is now among the 6% of German homes with fixed AC. “And as you get older, the heat gets harder to endure.”
Europe is reeling from its worst heatwave on record, and its lack of air conditioning has been criticized more than any other solution governments have been slow to promote. The emerging culture war has frustrated health experts who want more AC for vulnerable groups but are wary of widespread adoption in private homes. “Much of Europe’s investment has rightly gone into longer-term solutions like shade, insulation and cooling centres, rather than mechanical cooling,” says Hans Kluge, head of WHO Europe, which recommends nuanced adoption of AC for those at high risk. “Both have a role.”
Efforts to adapt have reduced death tolls by 75% for heat considered extreme two decades ago, but heatwaves have grown even hotter. More than 200,000 people died from heat in Europe in the last four years, per WHO estimates, and calls for faster change are mounting. The record-breaking June heat will likely yield a death toll in the thousands, if not low tens of thousands - well above levels that trouble countries like the US, which cools 90% of homes with AC.
Expert advice to install AC in hospitals, care homes, schools, and public transport enjoys cross-political support. But recently, accusations that mainstream parties are blocking AC to save the environment have dominated debate. The day after Germany’s heat record was broken, Marc Bernhard, construction spokesperson for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), said his party would stop people being “sacrificed on the altar” of climate ideology. This is a sharp move from the party’s views one year ago, when its health spokesperson Martin Sichert played down death tolls in a dismissal of “heat panic.” It also contrasts with AfD’s vehement rejection of heat pumps.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, which fought energy-efficient renovations and blocked wind turbines and solar panels, has made AC a core focus while attacking climate policies. The debate has been inflamed by US commentators who hold up Europe’s lack of AC as evidence of a misguided continent. “Europeans should just install air conditioning,” reads part of a chatbot-generated text on X boosted by Elon Musk, viewed nearly 20m times. “The American approach to summer was correct all along.”
AC is the norm in rich countries from the US to Japan to Australia, but only about 15% of the 3.5 billion people in hot regions own one. As temperatures and incomes rise, global cooling demand is set to soar. In southeast Asia, the IEA expects the number of ACs to rise ninefold between 2020 and 2040 under current policies.
Experts say there are downsides: expelling hot air worsens the urban heat island effect, and energy use heightens blackout risks. But AC’s climate impact in Europe is small and shrinking, with the continent burning fossil fuels for less than 30% of its electricity and over a dozen countries planning to phase them out within a decade. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that red tape or climate concerns drive low adoption rates across Europe. In fact, as carbon emissions have heated the continent twice as fast as the global average, the extra heat has prompted people in warmer regions to cool mechanically. The share of households in Italy and Spain with AC has quickly grown to over half; in France it’s 24%, with up to 48% in hot southern provinces and as little as 10% in cool northern ones.
In Germany, which has some of the lowest AC uptake in Europe partly due to a high proportion of renters, some homeowners feel June’s heat wasn’t disruptive enough to justify the purchase. “We’d consider AC if summers keep getting hotter, but when it’s just a few days we can bear it,” says Gabriele Werner, who works in the tourist information office of Neuzelle, near where the weekend heat was at its worst. When the Guardian visited Neuzelle and neighbouring Neißemünde, where almost every second voter backed the AfD at the last election, the most common response to the searing heat was apathy, along with pockets of outright denial. “Climate change is just a word that gets trumpeted,” says Reinhard Lange, a retired electrician whose 150-year-old house sits down the road from the weather station in Coschen that broke Germany’s heat record.
Kluge says Europe’s strong emergency response saved lives - with red alerts, school closures and cooling centres - but more could be done to contact isolated older people, who account for most deaths. “The priority now is ensuring AC reaches people for whom it’s a medical necessity, while building out infrastructure - trees, green roofs, cooler buildings - that protects everyone.” Other experts have gone further, supporting AC in social housing due to growing inequality and the rise of energy drains like data centres. “We are currently focusing a lot of our energy and water resources during heatwaves on cooling data centres,” says Dr Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at Oxford University. “Lives are more valuable to us than AI - or at least they should be, right?”