Why cooling is becoming a development issue

For most of the twentieth century, air-conditioning was a marker of affluence. In the twenty-first it is becoming a marker of survival. As average temperatures rise, the number of days on which outdoor work is dangerous, sleep is disrupted and food spoils before it reaches market is increasing fastest in places that are least equipped to cope.

A demand curve shaped by heat and income

Two forces drive cooling demand: how hot a place is and how much its people earn. Until recently they pointed in opposite directions. Rich countries were mostly temperate; hot countries were mostly poor. That is changing as incomes rise across South Asia, South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America.

• Hot, emerging economies
• Advanced economies
• World

100200300400500

2020202520302035204020452050

Source: Illustrative data for demonstration only

The result is a demand curve that could add the equivalent of several large countries’ electricity systems over the next three decades, with a sharp seasonal and daily peak that is expensive to serve.

Cooling is more than air-conditioning

Focusing only on room air-conditioners misses much of the story. Access to cooling also means:

• Cold chains that keep food and vaccines safe from farm or factory to the end user.
• Buildings designed with shading, ventilation and reflective roofs that stay cooler without machines.
• Workplaces where heat stress does not force people to stop work during the hottest hours.

Efficiency is the cheapest kilowatt

The typical air-conditioner sold today is far less efficient than the best available model. Raising minimum performance standards, phasing out climate-damaging refrigerants and designing buildings that need less mechanical cooling would let the same comfort be delivered with much less electricity.

Lever	Who acts	Main benefit
Efficiency standards	Governments	Lower peak demand
Passive building design	Planners, developers	Less need for machines
Cold-chain investment	Firms, development banks	Less food and vaccine loss
Heat-action plans	Cities	Fewer heat deaths

The choice is not between cooling and climate goals. It is between cooling that is efficient and planned, and cooling that arrives anyway, unplanned and expensive.