Driving the news: The recent extremes — which saw Portland, Oregon hit a staggering 116°F, and many other all-time records obliterated — caused a run on air conditioning units in Seattle, Portland, British Columbia and other areas.
The big picture: The regional sales are small compared to the surge of global cooling equipment needed in the years ahead, in industrialized countries but especially the developing world.
Yes, but: Inefficient air conditioners use a lot of energy. Especially in places where electricity doesn't come from clean sources, it'll be a challenge to deal with the heat caused by global warming without adding even more greenhouse gas emissions.
By the numbers: Roughly 2 billion air conditioning units are in operation worldwide, per a 2020 International Energy Agency (IEA) report. The global number of units installed could rise by two-thirds by 2030, per IEA.
- 35% of the world's population lives in countries where the average temperature is 77°F — extremes can vastly exceed this — and only 10% of that group own air conditioners.
- A 2017 study found that 30% of the world’s population is currently exposed to climatic conditions exceeding a deadly threshold for at least 20 days a year. By 2100, this percentage is projected to increase to about 48% even under a scenario with drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, or about 74% with growing emissions.
Threat level: The group Sustainable Energy for All estimates there are 1.1 billion people among the rural and urban poor at "high risk" from lack of cooling across 54 "high impact" nations.
- However, their report last month also estimates that another 2.34 billion lower-middle income people will soon be able to obtain air conditioning and refrigeration.
- The catch: "Price sensitivity and limited purchasing options mean they favor devices that are likely to be inefficient, threatening energy systems and resulting in increased GHG emissions," the find.
What we're watching: How much of the world's growing global cooling needs will be met with highly efficient units and buildings, use of heat pumps, low-impact coolants, and systems plugged into grids with high amounts of zero-carbon power.
- A separate IEA report last month, which models a global energy system that achieves "net-zero" emissions by 2050, finds it's possible to massively expand cooling in an emissions-friendly way.
- In that scenario, the number of air conditioning units in emerging and developing economies specifically rises by 650 million by 2030 and another 2 billion by 2050.
- But under their hugely ambitious model — not a prediction! — a basket of clean technologies nonetheless helps to cut CO2 emissions from the world's buildings by 95% by 2050.
Of note: "The answers to cooling go beyond air conditioning. Building design, city design, cooling strategies all have to work to ensure the A/C doesn’t have to work so hard," Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Axios.
What they're saying: "The first thing that needs to be reckoned with is that even in the current climate, too many people die of extreme heat for lack of air conditioning and because a few relatively simply, low-cost approaches are not effectively implemented by governments or individuals," Michael Oppenheimer, a climate scientist at Princeton University, told Axios.
- Cities that establish cooling centers, Oppenheimer said, may not be placing them in the most accessible areas.
- He noted that in Chicago, about one-third of cooling centers are located in police precincts. "Think about that in [the] context of the populations least likely to have air conditioning," he said.
