A Carbon-Neutral Plan to Air Condition the World

Air Conditioner (AC) use is expected to explode over the next three decades. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts the number of home AC units to increase nearly 4-fold by 2050. AC adoption in the developing world is a promising sign of an improved standard of living, though there are rightful concerns about the environmental impact of more space cooling. But there’s good news: there is a viable net-zero path toward cooling the world relying on existing technologies to offset the new units. <h1>The Real Reason for AC Increases</h1> I live in a temperate climate and used my Air Conditioner only ten days in the past year. Five of those days were <a href="https://www.kgw.com/article/weather/severe-weather/multnomah-confirms-5-heat-deaths-summer-2022/283-faa03f67-d056-456b-ae49-293b1077ebf1" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">hot enough to kill</a>. Even in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-extreme-heat-schools-2023-1.6867079" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">down-right cold areas</a>, Air Conditioners (ACs) still greatly improve quality of life. Over the past few years, there have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/23067049/heat-wave-air-conditioning-cooling-india-climate-change" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">several</a> pop-sci <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-prevent-air-conditioners-from-heating-the-planet/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">articles</a> in high-profile <a href="https://time.com/6077220/air-conditioning-bad-for-planet-how-to-fix/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">magazines</a> using the same IEA projections that I use here but focused on the irony that space cooling contributes to climate warming. They usually imply a feedback loop where global temperatures are driving ACs use while AC use increases climate change in a death spiral. This, thankfully, is not accurate. Climate change is not the primary driver of increased AC use — improved equipment affordability is. Here’s a graph from IEA showing the percentage of homes with AC ownership by country as of 2016: <a href="https://medium.com/the-new-climate/a-carbon-neutral-plan-to-air-condition-the-world-56d2cf0f11c0">Visit Now</a>