by A brutal heat wave packs many parts of Europe and makes millions of people difficult to adapt to punishing, record -breaking temperatures. Heat also remains at night, although the temperatures in some places do not drop much below 90 degrees.
There is little break. Air conditioning is very rare in European houses. With the help of electrical fans, ice cream bag and cold showers, many residents are forced to remove the scorching heat.
But Europe has not got used to the historically hotter United States. While almost 90% of the US houses have air conditioning, it is around 20% in Europe and some countries are much lower. Only around 5% of the houses have cooling systems in the United Kingdom – many of them are portable alternating current units. In Germany the number is 3%.
Since climate change drives more serious and longer heat waves that arrive earlier and earlier, some are wondering why wealthy European countries apparently were reluctant to say goodbye – especially since the heat is increasingly fatal.
A woman cools down by showing a fan at a bus stop with a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius during a heat wave in Madrid, on July 1, 2025. – Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
The Parisian and tourists cool off on July 1, 2025 in the Trocadero Fountain in Paris, France, when the French capital was in red alert. – Jerome Gilles/Nurphoto/Getty Images
A large part of the reason is that many European countries historically had little cooling, especially in the north. If waves have always happened, but rarely reached the extended high temperatures that Europe regularly takes regularly.
“In Europe … We just don’t have the tradition of air conditioning … because until recently it wasn’t a big need,” said Brian Motherway, head of the Office for Energy Efficiency and Integrative Transitions at the International Energy Agency.
This meant that AC was traditionally considered a luxury than a necessity, especially since the installation and management can be expensive. The energy costs in many European countries are higher than in the United States, while income tends to be lower.
Energy prices have increased even further since Russia entered Ukraine in 2022, since the EU takes steps to carry out its dependence on Russian oil and gas. Although prices have stabilized since the initial energy crisis of 2022, the costs for the power supply to an alternating current unit can still be unreachable for many Europeans.
Then there is architecture.
Some buildings in hotter, south -facing countries were built for the heat. They have thick walls, small windows that prevent the sun from shining inside, and are designed so that they maximize the air flow. This has contributed to keeping them cooler and reducing the perceived need for artificial cooling.
In other parts of Europe, however, houses were not designed taking into account the heat.
“We have not divided … to think about how we stay cool in summer. It is really a relatively youngest phenomenon,” said Mutterbahn.
Buildings on the continent are usually olderPresent Built before the AC technology became mainstream. In England, which has just endured his hottest June with record, one of six houses was built before 1900.
It can be more difficult to equip older houses with central cooling systems, although it is anything but impossible, said Motherway.
Sometimes a bigger problem is bureaucracy, said Richard Salmon, the director of the air conditioning in Great Britain based in Great Britain.
The British authorities often refuse to install AC “based on the visual appearance of the capacitor unit outdoors, especially in nature reserves or on listed buildings,” he said.
There is also a political corner. Europe has undertaken to become a “climate neutral” by 2050, and a strong increase in air conditioning systems will be even more difficult to achieve the climate obligations.
It is not only climate systems Energy Guzzlers, they also press the heat outside. A study that examines the alternating current consumption in Paris showed that they could increase the outside temperature between about 2 and 4 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 Fahrenheit). These effects are particularly serious in the generally thick cities of Europe.
Some countries have raised measures to limit the air conditioning. In 2022, Spain should have introduced rules that define the alternating current in public places no more than 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) to save energy.
Climate system units on the outside of a hotel during a heat wave in the Marques de Pombal District in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, July 13, 2022, – Goncalo Fonseca/Bloomberg/Getty Images
However, the attitudes and concerns about AC in Europe change because the continent becomes a climate hotspot and warmed up twice as high as the rest of the world.
The continent looks like a dilemma: energy -intensive air conditioning, with the negative climate effects that it entails, or alternative ways to get to finish your hot future.
“Our houses not only have to be resilient against the cold, but also for the increasingly brutal heat,” said Yetunde Abdul, director of the UK Green Building Council.
There are already clear signs that increases in Europe, as in many parts of the world. In an IEA report it was found that the number of air conditioning systems in the EU will increase to 275 million by 2050 – more than twice the number of 2019.
The salmon of the air conditioning system says that he has skyrocketed the demand for air conditioning systems. “In the past five years, residential inquiries have more than tripled. In particular, this heatwave has sent things through the roof … People simply cannot work if they cook at 3 a.m.”
Some politicians are pushing for a comprehensive recording of AC.
France’s right -wing extremist politician Marine Le Pen has sworn to implement a “large climate investment infrastructure plan”, while criticizing the “so -called French elites” to encourage others to search for alternative cooling methods while “enjoying obviously air -conditioned cars and offices”.
However, experts may warn AC a rapidly explanation through scorching temperatures, but it devours the energy that most of which still come from fossil fuels on planetary heating.
The use of fossil fuels increases the pollution of the planetary heating, which in turn increases the temperatures and “a vicious circle of deteriorating climate change”, said Radhika Khosla, Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford.
The reality is that the ways of thinking around AC will undoubtedly change in Europe, since extreme heat – and its health effects – increases, said Iea’s motherway.
The challenge is to ensure that the countries have a strong regulations on the efficiency of cooling systems in order to reduce their potentially enormous climate effects.
“Because every air conditioning sold today includes energy consumption and emissions for the next or two decades. So it is important that we get this right for the first time.”
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