PARIS—Rising summer temperatures have softened Europe’s resistance to air conditioning and touched off a new political fight about the wisdom of installing the technology everywhere, U.S.-style.
A heat wave that hit Western Europe in June and July spurred a run on air conditioners in appliance stores across the region. The scorching temperatures came unusually early, before many Europeans had a chance to decamp to the beach for summer vacation, exposing vulnerabilities in the cities where most people live. More than 1,000 French schools closed partially or completely because they lacked air conditioning.
Criticism quickly arose from politicians on the right who said authorities have left the continent woefully under-air conditioned. Marine Le Pen , the leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, proposed a major campaign to install air conditioning in schools, hospitals and other institutions. In the U.K., the Conservatives urged London’s Labour Party mayor to eliminate rules that restrict how air conditioning can be included in new housing. In Spain, the far-right Vox party has been highlighting air-conditioning breakdowns to criticize the country’s establishment parties.
“Public services are unable to function due to a lack of air conditioning, unlike dozens of countries around the world,” Le Pen said. “The government is still out of touch.”
French authorities pushed back. Energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher said large-scale air conditioning would heat up streets with the machines’ exhaust, making heat waves worse. “It’s a bad solution,” she told reporters during the last heat wave, flanked by the perspiring prime minister, François Bayrou . “We should air-condition for vulnerable people to give them a break, but on the other hand we shouldn’t do it everywhere.”
Extreme heat is the biggest climate-change danger facing Europe , marring the continent’s once-mild summers with heat waves that are becoming more frequent and intense. Adapting to it is expected to require huge investments and a major shift in European attitudes toward air conditioning, which many have long regarded as a luxury that Americans use to excess.
“Abroad, the contrast is striking: the United States is investing several billion dollars to modernize the air conditioning of its schools, while hospitals there are already largely air-conditioned,” read legislation proposed by French conservatives this month that would require air conditioning installed in institutions across the country.
The prospect of U.S.-style air conditioning sends shivers through some Europeans. In France, media outlets often warn that cooling a room to more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the outside temperature can cause something called “thermal shock,” resulting in nausea, loss of consciousness and even respiratory arrest. That would be news to Americans who expect indoor temperatures to be cooled to around 75 degrees even when it is near 100 outside.
Others fear respiratory infections that might result from spending long periods in air-conditioned rooms. Europeans who are particularly concerned about climate change want to avoid using electricity for air conditioning that would generate additional greenhouse-gas emissions.
Still, the requirement to stay cool is overcoming such skepticism. Europe is the fastest-warming continent, heating twice as much as the global average since the 1980s, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Last month was the hottest June in Western Europe on record, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Experts say more air conditioning is a necessity to prevent thousands of people from dying during heat waves. Death aside, Europeans from London to Madrid have increasingly decided they don’t want to endure another heat wave in an apartment that isn’t air-conditioned.
“I have the impression that it is getting hotter and hotter every year,” said Sophie Berto, an analyst who has lived in Paris for a decade. Berto broke down this year and snagged the last air conditioner at an appliance store in central Paris. “Maybe because I wasn’t here in previous years, but now it is too hot.”
Air conditioning is expected to drive up annual power demand substantially in southern Europe—one study predicted an increase of around 10% in Italy by 2050. In Northern Europe, reduced need for heating in winter should offset some of the additional energy demand in the summer; but there the grid is expected to come under new stress from government plans to replace natural-gas heating with electric heat pumps, devices that can be used to either warm or cool. The dynamics are putting pressure on the continent to ensure it has enough renewable electricity sources to meet surging demand.
Some environmentalists and scientists say Europe can keep cool without relying on air conditioning on a massive scale. Incorporating more greenery into buildings and streets can lower extreme temperatures in cities. Designing buildings to allow ventilation can reduce the need for air conditioning, as can installing shutters that block sunlight from entering the building.
Yet regulations that require such measures have become a target in the current political debate. In London, construction firms must consider cooling design features before including air conditioning in new buildings. Andrew Bowie, a Conservative member of Parliament, this month called for Mayor Sadiq Khan to end “the ridiculous restrictions on air-conditioning units in new builds in London.”
“We must move away from this poverty mindset on reducing energy usage,” he said.
“The mayor is not banning air conditioning,” said a spokeswoman for Khan, adding that his development plan “recommends developers install other forms of ventilation in new homes, which help to lower energy costs for households.’”
French officials want to expand geothermal heating and cooling systems to avoid the need for traditional air conditioning. Such systems circulate water from deep underground, removing heat from buildings into the ground in the summer and putting it back in the winter. The process is much more efficient than normal air conditioning and avoids sending heat into the air. The upfront investment, however, is significant and possibly prohibitive for installation in buildings that are more than a century old and common in Europe’s old-world capitals.
Château Pontet-Canet, a winery near Bordeaux, has installed such a system that worked perfectly during the last heat wave, cooling the property’s wine tanks, cellar and offices, said technical director Mathieu Bessonnet.
“The ecological problem is whether we should air-condition or not,” Bessonnet said. “Wine is our business, and we don’t want to make vinegar. So we have to air condition… The idea of consuming energy to air-condition for comfort, well, that is what remains absurd.”
Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@wsj.com
