OpenTube

The Bizarre Debate Over Europe’s Air Conditioning

Prof Gio | Giordano Scarciotti

40,383 views

Why does Europe have so little air conditioning compared with the United States? With European heatwaves becoming more intense and around 90% of US homes using air conditioning compared with roughly 20% in Europe, this video explores the real reasons behind Europe’s low AC adoption: from historically milder summers, traditional building design, passive cooling and high electricity prices to renting and changing climate conditions. I also examine what widespread air-conditioning adoption could mean for Europe’s electricity grid, including peak demand, the UK’s future cooling scenarios, and how solar power could help meet growing cooling demand. Finally, I look at the increasingly political debate over air conditioning in Europe and unpack the rhetoric behind claims that environmentalists and climate policies are responsible, including scapegoating, causal oversimplification, the Motte-and-Bailey fallacy, adaptation-washing and the false dilemma between protecting people from extreme heat and tackling climate change.

👇 If you are finding this breakdown helpful, leaving a comment below is one of the best ways to support the video.

🔔To help scale up the channel's operations and bring you more of this high-level science outreach, consider supporting my work on Patreon: Patreon: ProfGio

☕If a monthly commitment isn't for you, but you still want to help support the channel's growth, I have also set up a Buy Me a Coffee page: https://buymeacoffee.com/profgio

🔔 Subscribe for more breakdowns of our power grids and global energy systems.

⏱️ Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction: Europe's Air Conditioning Gap
01:18 - The Engineering Problem & Architectural History
04:16 - The Politics and Culture War of Cooling
06:01 - What Happens to the Power Grid?
07:51 - The Overlap with Solar Energy
09:45 - Analyzing the Rhetorical Techniques
13:06 - Conclusion

📚 References Discussed:
Copernicus — Western Europe’s record-hot June 2026 : https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface...
Copernicus — Record heatwave and June 2026 temperature records : https://climate.copernicus.eu/coperni...
IEA — The Future of Cooling : https://www.iea.org/reports/the-futur...
Eurostat — Residential cooling energy consumption in the EU : https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/pro...
US EIA — Residential electricity prices in the United States : https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/det...
Eurostat — EU household electricity prices : https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/pro...
Guardian — Europe’s air-conditioning culture war : https://www.theguardian.com/environme...
Guardian — France’s political row over air conditioning during the 2025 heatwave : https://www.theguardian.com/world/202...
Der Freitag / Guardian — German coverage of the air-conditioning culture war : https://www.freitag.de/autoren/the-gu...
Jean-Luc Mélenchon — Interview on heat, cooling and building adaptation : https://melenchon.fr/2026/07/22/une-n...
Ideal Home — Air conditioning and landlord permission for tenants : https://www.idealhome.co.uk/renovatio...
de Munck et al. — Air conditioning and urban warming in Paris : https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com...
Salamanca et al. — Air-conditioning waste heat and urban temperatures : https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.c...
Balkan Insight — Heatwave pressure on Romania’s electricity system : https://balkaninsight.com/2026/08/06/...
IEA — Staying cool without overheating the energy system : https://www.iea.org/commentaries/stay...
NESO — 2025 Future Energy Scenarios : https://www.neso.energy/document/3645...
BRE — Overheating in dwellings and passive night ventilation : https://files.bregroup.com/bre-co-uk-...
Financial Times — Tropical nights in Europe : https://www.ft.com/content/d78ed235-b...
Energy & Environmental Science — Meeting global cooling demand with photovoltaics : https://pubs.rsc.org/ee/article/12/9/...

🏷️ Tags:
#AirConditioning #Europe #Heatwave #ClimateChange #Energy #ElectricityGrid #SolarEnergy #RenewableEnergy #Engineering #ClimatePolicy #PassiveCooling #ExtremeHeat

20 Comments

@Prof_Gio Creator 1 month ago Pinned

If you live in Europe, let me know in the comments: do you have air conditioning where you live, and has that changed in recent years? Also, what other topics would you like me to cover in a future video? I may not reply to all, but I read your comments and they inform my next videos.
This is an independent channel and creating these deep-dive videos takes a lot of time (e.g. editing) and resources (e.g. gear, licenses). If you value this kind of engineering content and want to help support the channel, please check these links:
🧡 Patreon (monthly): https://www.patreon.com/cw/ProfGio
☕ Buy Me a Coffee (one-off): https://buymeacoffee.com/profgio

Thank you for watching and for being part of this community ☺

@fnorgen 1 month ago

I find it funny how a fairly high proportion of Norwegians wound up with AC on accident. Cheap, air to air heat pumps became very popular, since they offer an easy retrofit to old houses which saves loads of money on heating. But those heat pumps are reversible, so now we just have cooling during heat waves, even though we never would have bought AC just for the summer. That's how even my cheap rental unit wound up with AC.

@Thx1138sober 1 month ago

When I lived in Texas, we only needed heat for 25 to 40 days each winter, but every house and business has a heating system.

@fintux 1 month ago

I live in Finland, which actually has a very high proportion of air conditioning. The reason is seemingly paradoxical: cold climate. A very high proportion of Finnish homes used to have direct electric heating or oil heating. To save in costs, people have installed heat pumps, which almos always double as AC. I only have a portable unit for extreme days, but actually most people I know have heat pumps and thus also AC. Not having AC does occasionally require being smart about ventilation and window blinds, as well as using fans.

@danieldevries5203 1 month ago

We live in Belgium. We have AC, solar panels and battery storage. On hot days we are a net producer. I know this is not possible for everyone but a lot of middle class people here can do the same.

@josdesouza 1 month ago

I live in Brazil (latitude~ 22º South). I don't have aircon because I can comfortably do without it: my house is an old one, built long ago, when simple, yet ingenious built-in passive cooling principles were still common fare.

@MentalLentil-ev9jr 1 month ago

I see this as an opportunity to increase heat pump uptake in the UK. People who are unwilling to upgrade to a heat pump may well be persuaded when they realise that an air-to-air can cool as well as heat, also air-to-air is often cheaper to install than air-to-water. Solar panels would mean that AC (air-to-air heat pumps) would be very cheap to run when it is most needed, so a real incentive to get solar panels.

The main thing we need to do for home energy is to get rid of gas boilers, this is essential to remove fossil fuel use. Summers are only going to get hotter so the incentive for cooling is going to grow.

@swmike 1 month ago

I wish pro-climate action politicians would grab the opportunity of saying "look, because we're installing so much PV and batteries, we can run heat pumps that can both heat and cool your home as needed". What's wrong with some populism that at the same times drives electrification?

I have 2 air/air heatpumps, a ground source heat pump, PV and batteries, and my home is always very nice temperature regardless of the outside temperature.

@ToumalRakesh 1 month ago (edited)

We installed AC in 2024 and it has been the single best investment, aside from solar and energy storage. Not just for cooling, mind you, it also provided critical heating when our main geothermal system was down after a flood (ultimately only a few components had to be replaced, but we had to wait several months for the repairs).
BTW yes, battery storage completely erases the evening AC peak. Also batteries have come down significantly in price. Since April we're drawing absolutely zero kWh from the grid.

Of course, it would be preferable to not have floods, heatwaves, droughts, etc. - AC is a band-aid. Especially in the cities, having proper construction and lots of trees would alleviate a lot of the immediate problems with zero energy costs.

@RicardoCebola 1 month ago

I live in Portugal. I have AC in the 3 rooms and the living room. No AC in kitchen and bathrooms. My parents had AC since 1990 or something - just rooms and living rooms too. The AC is not like Americans and whole house. AC is especially useful for stopping mosquitos at night than heat. We can comfortably endure heat of 35°C+ in Portugal as long as the night is cool yes. Thing is the windows need to be shut during the day. AC usage during day is rare - no mosquitos.

@taith2 1 month ago

In the past we had like ~10 "hot" days where I live, so why would you need AC is leaving window open trough the night cooled interior enough to last whole day
Now it is like 2 blazing months where old people drop like flies

@tihouss 1 month ago

former neighbours in Cyprus had both Pv panels and AC: they simply turned on the AC for free during the day, and didn't need that costly peak use in the evening.
also, widespread adoption of AC would lead to widespread heat pumps, and those work very well for heating very efficiently.

@krzysztofkrypczyk3677 1 month ago

It’s funny how people who were denying climate change just yesterday, are now saying that AC is basically human right.

@sazenfrog 1 month ago

I live in southern France and installed AC one year after moving into my house which previously didn't have it. My relatively modern house is not designed to withstand summer temperatures without help, even with shutting the shutters during the day. I don't have solar panels because they are a shocking price. It's my opinion that all those politicians in Europe criticising AC saying it's bad for the environment almost certainly have it themselves. It's always one rule for the plebs and one rule for the so-called elite.

@mattiaarnio9249 1 month ago

Living near Helsinki, some years we have had 2-3 weeks of "hot" weather (+25 to +30°C), current year 2026 just a few days.
Our heating is using in-floor water loops, and that does not do cooling. It is for the winter time.
This is a ground source water-water heat pump system.

@sbillows 1 month ago

I live in the south of the UK, and 3 years ago installed an air to air heat pump for heating the living areas of the house to save energy instead of gas central heating. In the summer it used to be unusual to have more than 15 days per year where the maximum daily temperature was over 25C, so it was not really a consideration that we would use it for cooling. However this year we've had more than 60 days of over 25C so it's been a real bonus to use it for cooling. I'm now looking to totally replace my gas boiler and install heat pumps in the rest of the house.

@cjholmes2 1 month ago

UK here. Got tired of all the hot nights in our 2019 new build. On holidays to continental Europe saw lots of window shades, solar panels and air con. First got quote for window shades but planning permission and cost drove me instead to solar + AC. Now I'm hooked - love it partly because I'm an elec power systems engineer - and have a battery, and an A2W heat pump being installed next week.

I enjoy your videos - thanks for doing them

@mika2666 1 month ago

Living in the Netherlands we’re checking out airconditioning for our house since last summer and this one have been too much

@marinopascal1970 1 month ago (edited)

I am in Greece in a 3 bedroom house. I installed new AC in every room two years ago to double for cooling and heating. I didn't want to install a heat pump as I did in my previous house because I didn't want weeks of construction workers breaking my walls to put pipes in a house I already lived in. Last year I put ceiling fans in every room. This summer I haven't turned on the AC. I've used only the ceiling fans. Electricity consumption with AC is 30-60KWH a day depending if I have them on in every room and for how long. Electricity consumption with ceiling fans is 7KWH running 24hrs a day in every room. 7KWH includes all the other things that consume electricity in a house a fridge, washing machine, lights, computers etc. Ceiling fans consume ten times less than AC and you can have the windows open. My ceiling fans are not the cheapest, they cost €100-120 to buy and they have a built in light with adjustable intensity and color temperature. So you can put them everywhere you have a ceiling light. I installed them myself with amateur skills.

@whatabouttheforests4631 1 month ago

I live nw of London and have 4kw solar panels and 10kwh storage.

With a bit of management for 4 months we get free ac, free energy for our ev, and use very little mains electricity.

It's been very reassuring during the rise in electricity and petrol prices.

Still amazes me how few neighbours who also have south facing roofs have invested in solar.