Europe has already been hit this summer by record-breaking heat/Shutterstock

By Daniel Béland and Jale Tosun

July 8, 2026

HEIDELBERG, Germany — In the wake of the record-breaking heat wave that hit Western and Central Europe in late June, there is renewed debate over something most North Americans — especially in the United States — take for granted: air conditioning.

On June 26th, the German city of Saarbrücken experienced a record-high temperature of 41.3 degrees Celsius. The same day here in Heidelberg, the high reached “only” 39 degrees Celsius, still about 15 degrees above average.

With limited options for centrally air-conditioned refuge beyond hotel lobbies or, more expensively, hotel rooms, Heidelbergers resorted to portable, miniature fans to fight the heat.

“Heatwaves like this are what we expect to see in a changing climate,” said John Kennedy, head of climate information at the World Meteorological Organization, of the June spike. “In the 50 years since the historic heatwave in 1976, Europe as a whole has warmed by around two degrees. It’s the fastest warming continent and extremes of temperature have increased too.”

In Germany, as in France and in other European countries, heat waves generate a significant number of “excess deaths” — about 175,000 Europeans die annually of heat-related causes, according to the World Health Organization.

The issue in Heidelberg — as elsewhere in Germany and in most parts of Europe — is that rising temperatures and powerful hitzewelle (heat wave in German — yes, Deutsche Welle means “German Wave”) are hitting in places where the use of air conditioning is much less common than it is in North America.

In America, 85% of households have some form of AC. That rises to 99% in the South, where regional economies, architecture and demographics have been revolutionized by AC. In Canada, the national rate of household air conditioning is 77%. Across Europe, the rate of household AC is 20%, with that rate rising as one moves south, to 40% in Spain, 50% in Italy, and 60% in Greece.

Currently, fewer than 6% of German households have air conditioning, and while a higher percentage of private businesses do have air conditioning, it is not the case for most public buildings, including schools and universities.

Even in hospitals and nursing homes, air conditioning is typically in limited supply and often reserved for operating blocks or shared spaces rather than individual rooms. This means that both patients and medical staff suffer heat-related discomfort during heat waves such as the ones we witnessed in late June.

With few households and public buildings equipped with air conditioning, fans and air conditioners sold out during the heat wave. Demand for air conditioning increased by 300% over just a couple of days.

Predictably enough in an age of political polarization when public spending norms on everything from energy to defence seem to be shattering, the debate over air conditioning in Germany is heating up politically, with far-right parties blaming climate activism for AC chill.

“Climate hysteria is leading to more heat-related deaths due to ideological construction errors such as abstaining from air conditioning,” the far-right AfD party’s Marc Bernhard told The Guardian the day after Germany’s heat record was broken.

With limited options for centrally air-conditioned refuge beyond hotel lobbies or, more expensively, hotel rooms, Heidelbergers resorted to portable, miniature fans to fight the heat.

Here on the campus of Heidelberg University, in the absence of air conditioning, students must attend lectures in overheated classrooms, especially because the academic year only ends in the penultimate week of July. During the June heat wave, some classes were conducted using online tools – as during the COVID-19 pandemic – to ensure that students could stay home or in another place that was cool and safe.

There are powerful factors that have slowed down the wider adoption of air conditioning in Europe. One of these is the cost of electricity, which is much higher in Europe than in North America.

To this we can add policy factors such as both domestic and European environmental regulations that support passive forms of cooling over air conditioning, which is responsible for significant levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

Additionally, the cost of retrofitting old buildings that were built to keep heat in during cold winters with air conditioning is significant so they are clear economic obstacles to the diffusion of air conditioning in Europe.

While environmental concerns and economic constraints are a major part of the story, cultural factors also play a role. As a French friend of Mother Jones writer Henry Graber once told him, air conditioning “pollutes, it’s often too cold, the air is fake. It makes you sick, and it gives you a headache. It keeps you inside and it creates nonstop arguments with the team at work. It makes me feel like an old prune.” The notion that air conditioning is bad for your health is something that we hear in Germany as well.

Central AC installation here is also subject to extensive regulation, including rules on noise emissions, environmental protection, decarbonization requirements, historical building preservation, and energy efficiency. And because tenants generally have no right to demand air conditioning, it is unlikely that Germany or other European countries will follow New York City’s lead in considering a legal obligation for landlords to install it.

A more plausible path forward for Europe is that alternatives to air conditioning will take priority in adaptation planning. These include designing buildings to allow natural air circulation and using construction materials that retain less heat, along with improved sun-shading features.

Modern heat pumps offer an energy- and emissions-efficient way to heat homes, and many models now include a cooling function that is especially useful in summer. Ironically, while the installation of heat pumps was gaining momentum, in Germany modifications to the Building Energy Law proposed by the current federal government could lead to fewer heat pump installations.

Beyond individual buildings, city-level measures matter too: green spaces and water features help cool urban areas and reduce the heat island effect, while many cities are adopting shared solutions like misting systems and public cooling centers.

These approaches tend to cost more and take longer to deliver heat relief than air conditioning does. Yet they are also more holistic, and because they avoid air added energy demand, they contribute less to global warming.

In other words, while the use of air conditioning is likely to keep growing in Europe, the continent is expected to take a different approach to cooling that we are witnessing in AC-centric North America.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Policy Columnist Daniel Béland is professor of political science and director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada at McGill University.

Jale Tosun is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Political Science (IPW), Heidelberg University.