When horrible things happen to people you care about, it’s only natural to seek someone to blame. If you ask the mayoral administration in charge of Paris, France, it seems responsibility for Europe’s devastating heatwave is being placed on the United States’ affinity for air conditioning.
Last week, recently-elected Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire went on the record with Le Monde amidst one of the worst heatwaves in the city’s history — an event which has reportedly resulted in over 1,000 excess deaths across France.
Asked whether Parisians should rush out to install AC units in their homes which famously shun them, Grégoire sharply disagreed, saying that “individual air conditioning is a scourge — it makes the problem worse by heating the city even more.”
That prompted plenty of derision from talking heads in the United States, who laughed off the notion as a bunch of woke Parisians who don’t understand real heat.
In a blistering retort on Instagram, Paris’ deputy mayor Audrey Pulvar stepped into the arena on Grégoire’s behalf, blasting American commentators for mocking France’s climate woes while contributing the most to global emissions.
“For days some of you have been criticizing and making fun of Paris, because the city doesn’t have AC in every room of every apartment and places,” Pulvar wrote. “OMG, this is so rich!”
The deputy mayor continued, arguing that Paris, led by the mayor’s center-left parti socialiste, has done its part to reduce emissions, embrace green energy, and make the river Seine clean for summertime swimmers.
“Yes, there is still much to be done,” Pulvar continued. “But perhaps it would be more appropriate for one of the countries most responsible for the problem not to lecture those who are trying to find solutions for their own populations.”
International culture war aside, the argument raises a worthwhile question: do personal AC units fuel global warming? The answer, as with any climate debate, is complicated.
According to some estimates, air conditioning currently accounts for about 3.2 percent of global climate emissions when you factor in both electricity use and refrigerant leakage. All told, AC units are responsible for consuming about 7 percent of of the world’s electricity — a pretty significant chunk overall.
Zooming in, it’s clear the US plays a major role in AC-linked emissions: unlike similarly wealthy, Western countries like France or Germany, the overwhelming majority of US households have personal AC units. Between May through August every year, the US emits an average of around 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from AC every month, roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of the Netherlands.
But while it’s true that American climate control plays a role in spewing the kinds of emissions driving climate change, to frame France as a unique casualty of global warming misses a broader point. While France made a strong effort to reverse course in recent years, the European nation has spewed a cumulative total of about 40 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions throughout its history. In other words, France isn’t exactly off the hook for its own noxious pollution.
And as the seventh largest economy in the world, France has plenty of wealth and resources to mitigate extreme heat and offer public assistance to those most in need. The countries whose populations are most vulnerable to extreme heat — think Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua — have no such luxury, either through broad eco-friendly initiatives or mass AC adoption.
As one study of AC’s contribution to global warming found, if these low-income countries gained the same kind of access to AC as the rich parts of the world, carbon emissions would surge so dramatically that it could add up to 0.05 degrees Celsius of extra warming by 2050 — a disaster scenario for long-term climate targets.
The correct answer, then, is not simply that the US’ love of air conditioning feeds global warming. It does. In an ever-warming world, air conditioning has become a stark measure of global inequality: the wealthy nations of the world can afford to cool themselves from the climate crises they’re exacerbating, while the poorest — both least responsible and most uniquely exposed to the changing climate — are left with no good options at all.
More on climate change: All But Five US States Are Currently Experiencing Droughts
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