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Cooling from air conditioning saves lives—more than 5,000 a year in the United States alone—but it also heats up the planet and taxes our electrical grid, scientists say.
As the world warms, heat waves strike nearly every continent, and United Nations officials estimate that about half a million people die a year from heat; air conditioning is needed and being used more than ever. A study in Nature Health reported that air conditioning saved nearly 58,000 lives between 2010 and 2020 in the U.S. Air conditioning use is skyrocketing around the world, with electricity demand from cooling expected to triple, according to the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Environment Programme.
It’s also more of a problem than ever. Because most of the electricity for cooling comes from the burning of fossil fuels, the U.N. projects the amount of heat-trapping gas spewed into the atmosphere from air conditioning use to rise from 4.5 billion to 7.2 billion tons in the next 25 years or so. That 7.2 billion tons is almost as much as the carbon pollution from the United States and Europe now.
“Everyone knows air conditioning works, but air conditioning from a climate change perspective is not an ideal,” said Kai Chen, an epidemiology professor at the Yale School of Public Health who was the senior author on the new study. “It leads to more carbon emissions … then it accelerates the climate warming problem.”
Chen said the study concluded that “the essential role” of air conditioning saved on average 5,267 lives a year. But it also found that this has to be balanced with “overuse.” He pointed to offices—like his—which are cooled so much that many workers wear sweaters even in the summer. More than half the cases researchers looked at could be considered overuse, he said.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.