Europeans slowly warm to air conditioning as climate change heats continent

In Italy and Spain, fans and siestas used to be enough to beat the summer heat, but air conditioner sales are rising as climate change pushes up temperatures

In those countries and elsewhere in Europe, though, many resist their adoption for moral or financial reasons, and experts warn more ACs will make cities hotter

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A customer looks at air conditioning units at a Rome department store. As climate change causes summer temperatures to soar in Europe, air conditioner use is rising. Photo: AP

Published: 7:15pm, 4 Aug 2023

During Europe’s heatwave in July 2023, Floriana Peroni’s vintage clothing store had to close for a week. A truck of rented generators blocked its door as they fed power to the central Roman neighbourhood, hit by a blackout as temperatures surged. The main culprit: air conditioning.

The period – in which temperatures hit 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) – coincided with peak electricity use that came close to Italy’s all-time high, hitting a peak load of more than 59 gigawatts on July 19. That neared a July 2015 record.

Intensive electricity use knocked out the network not only near the central Campo de Fiori neighbourhood, where Peroni operates her shop, but elsewhere in the Italian capital.

Demand in that second July week surged 30 per cent, correlating to a heatwave that had persisted already for weeks, according to the capital’s electricity company Areti.

Floriana Peroni at her vintage clothing shop in downtown Rome, where she relies on fans to dissipate the summer heat. Photo: AP

Like many Romans, Peroni herself does not have air conditioning either in her home or her shop. Rome once could count on a Mediterranean breeze to bring down nighttime temperatures, but that has become an intermittent relief at best.

“At most, we turn on fans,” Peroni said. “We think that is enough. We tolerate the heat, as it has always been tolerated.”