Cooling’s emissions and infrastructure trade-off
Air conditioning is becoming a larger part of the response to dangerous heat, but its growing use carries rising emissions and infrastructure costs. Refrigeration and air conditioning already account for about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Those emissions could double by 2030 and triple by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency. The projection captures the scale of the challenge: cooling can reduce immediate exposure to heat while adding to the emissions that intensify it.
The tension is immediate. Cooling protects people from lethal temperatures, yet dependence on energy-intensive systems can put pressure on electricity grids and worsen the conditions driving demand. The challenge is to expand access to life-saving cooling while reducing the need to run air conditioners around the clock. This is more significant than it looks: the question isn't simply how many units get installed, but whether homes and power systems can support their use without multiplying the costs.
Cooling protects lives, with access still limited
Heat exposure is already a major health risk. A Lancet study estimated that nearly 500,000 people died from heat each year between 2000 and 2019, with older people particularly vulnerable. Air conditioning is estimated to prevent about 190,000 deaths annually. Those figures make the public-health case for cooling hard to dismiss, especially for people whose age or health makes extreme heat more dangerous.
But access remains far from universal. More than 80% of the world’s population regularly experiences heat that calls for cooling, while only 40% can access air conditioning, The Economist reported. The largest gaps are in the poorest and hottest countries, where households face high heat exposure and limited ability to afford cooling. Access, in other words, is uneven precisely where the need can be greatest.
That disparity reflects both household finances and infrastructure. Many lower-income countries lack the capital to expand power generation and modernize grids for broad adoption. Even where units are available, their purchase and operating costs can put cooling out of reach. A unit on sale doesn't guarantee reliable or affordable relief if the household can't pay to run it or the grid can't meet peak demand.
Low-cost units can mean higher bills and grid demand
The units that poorer households can afford are often less efficient, adding to electricity demand on already strained grids. They can also cost a large share of household income to operate. The Economist reported that the poorest households may spend as much as 8% of income on cooling, compared with a global range of 0.2% to 2.5% for wealthier households. That gap shows how the cost of heat protection can fall hardest on people with the least room in their budgets.
Efficiency depends on the building as well as the machine. Cheap air conditioners consume more electricity, and poorly insulated homes allow cooled air to escape. The result is a costly loop: low-income households pay more for less effective relief, while added electricity use contributes to emissions and peak load. If you're working in this space, the building's condition matters as much as the appliance's performance.
Mat Santamouris, a professor of high-performance architecture at UNSW Sydney, described air conditioning as essential during extreme heat but warned that relying on mechanical cooling alone would put heavy pressure on electricity systems and add heat to cities. His point is practical: expanding air-conditioning use can address immediate exposure, but it doesn't resolve the conditions that make buildings and urban areas hotter. A cooling strategy built around equipment alone risks treating the symptom while leaving the underlying heat burden in place.
Passive cooling could curb demand
A study in Nature Reviews Clean Energy found that passive cooling measures could cut air-conditioning demand by up to 80% and reduce ambient temperatures by more than 4°C (7.2°F). The measures include ventilative cooling and solar control. The study's authors say these approaches are already mature enough to scale, and call for policies that support their development and deployment. The potential reductions are substantial, though their value depends on how well measures fit local buildings and conditions.
That offers a route to manage the trade-off: reduce indoor heat and cooling loads through building design and ventilation, then use mechanical cooling where it remains necessary to protect health. Passive measures won't eliminate the need for air conditioning, especially during extreme heat, but they could limit how much electricity cooling requires. Here's the thing: lowering demand can make each air conditioner more useful, while easing some pressure on household bills and power systems.
Passive cooling also changes the timing of the decision. Building design and ventilation can shape energy needs for years, while an air-conditioning unit addresses the heat a household faces now. Both have a role. The hard part is ensuring that immediate protection doesn't crowd out measures that reduce future demand.
The next test is reducing dependence
As heat intensifies, cooling demand is likely to keep rising. The key market and infrastructure question is whether buildings can become less dependent on air conditioning before higher demand compounds emissions, grid strain and household costs. The figures suggest that access and efficiency need to be considered together: wider access matters for health, but access to inefficient equipment in poorly designed homes can leave households paying heavily for limited relief.
That said, passive measures can't stand in for cooling when heat becomes dangerous. The task is to pair them with mechanical systems where needed, and to make the buildings around those systems less prone to trapping heat. No quick fix. What this means for you is that the cooling story isn't only about appliance sales or electricity supply; it also turns on how homes are built, adapted and kept affordable to cool.