Europe’s growing dependence on air conditioning reflects a broader shift in how heat is managed. Marketed as efficient and climate-friendly, cooling technologies offer short-term relief, but their energy demand, refrigerant emissions, and lifecycle impacts risk locking households into high-emission habits while distracting from systemic solutions.
When Berlin hit 39 degrees this June, Leila Mertens did not think twice about buying a cooling fan.
‘It was impossible to stay in the house or even sleep at night,’ she says, looking at what she regards as a life saver. ‘I bought it online for about €300. This set me back moneywise, but my choices were limited.’
Leila says the idea to buy an air conditioner had long been on her mind since the Summer of 2022, which, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, was the hottest on record for Europe. She finally decided to buy a portable cooling unit in the Summer of 2023, which was globally the warmest in at least 35 years.
This, she says, is how she was able to ‘survive’ the summers of 2024 and 2025. However, she is worried she may need a bigger or stronger air conditioner for the next summers as cities such as Berlin face rising temperatures due to climate change. She is worried her energy costs will rise.
This urge to ‘survive’ through cooling during heatwaves has increased the uptake of portable and fixed air conditioners. In Germany, nearly one in five households now owns an air conditioner, nearly double the share from two years ago.
According to Clean Energy Wire, household ownership of air conditioners in Germany rose from 13 per cent in 2023 to nearly 19 per cent in 2024, with another 19 per cent planning to buy. Also in 2024, domestic production rose 75 per cent compared to 2019 levels, and imports were valued at nearly €1 billion.
Across Europe, cooling has become a symbol of both adaptation and dependency. It offers relief during heatwaves but ties societies more tightly to energy-intensive systems and extractive supply chains that stretch far beyond Europe’s borders. Experts say this reliance reflects a broader pattern in climate communication that frames the problem as solvable through technology and individual effort rather than systemic reforms.
Studies show that overreliance on AC worsens the effects of climate change through energy use and refrigerants leaks, not only harming the environment, but also people’s health. Air conditioners rely on hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, refrigerants that the European Commission describes as ‘potent greenhouse gases’ whose emissions contribute significantly to climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also notes that rising cooling demand drives up energy use and associated emissions.
Deutsche Umwelthilfe, or Environmental Action Germany, has called these substances hidden climate killers. ‘The emissions from harmful refrigerants heat the planet, which drives even more demand for cooling,’ said Jürgen Resch, the organisation’s federal managing director. ‘We have to break the cycle and move to natural alternatives.’
Researchers at the German Institute of Urban Affairs say the health and economic toll of heatwaves is still underestimated, citing lost productivity, rising hospital admissions, and higher household bills. Germany recorded more than 8,500 heat-related deaths between 2023 and 2025, with older people, the chronically ill, and those in poorly insulated homes most at risk.
Together, these figures show that Germany’s heat emergency is shaped not only by rising temperatures but by deeper forces: growing reliance on technological quick fixes and pressure on individuals to cope alone. By equating comfort through the use of cooling devices is the same as climate resilience, we turn a blind eye to rising electricity demand, increased emissions, and growing inequity.
The quick fix illusion: Misinformation and disinformation
Portable air conditioners are often marketed as efficient or environmentally friendly because they use inverter technology, which enables an AC unit to operate at variable speeds, or meet EU seasonal efficiency energy standards, which are measured on a relative scale.
But for many households, cooling is a question of comfort and cost. Consumer watchdogs such as Verbraucherzentrale NRW and Stiftung Warentest say that the belief in air conditioning as a quick-fix response to extreme heat mirrors a broader pattern in climate politics that is biased toward technological solutions.
They warn that efficiency claims on cooling devices usually focus on narrow conditions and overlook real-world energy use, refrigerant leaks, and the high emissions tied to production and disposal. This kind of marketing, they note, turns confusion into profit, promoting comfort as climate action while distracting from the need for deeper structural change.
The Consumer Watchdog cautions against ‘miracle’ technology’.
‘It is important to check which technology the device uses to cool the room air. However, there is no miracle technology that simply makes heat disappear. Those are promises that cannot be kept,’ says the center on its advisory tips to consumers.
A 2025 study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue Germany found that climate misinformation in Europe increasingly works through selectivity and omission, often promoting technological optimism while obscuring the systemic social and ecological dimensions of the crisis.
On climate change, this kind of omission feeds a wider disinformation campaign that distorts public perception and influences policy. Misleading advertising and public messaging such as labelling products ‘eco-friendly’ risk locking societies into high-emission habits.
In tests of mobile air conditioners, Stiftung Warentest, Germany’s independent consumer-testing authority, has found that mobile monoblock air conditioners are far less efficient and effective than advertised.
Yet many models are still marketed with EU energy labels based on laboratory conditions rather than real household use, leading consumers to underestimate their energy demand and climate impact.
That same dynamic helps make selective efficiency claims for cooling devices so persuasive, shifting attention away from the structural measures that underpin real heat resilience.
Advertising also highlights ‘climate-friendly’ refrigerants while rarely acknowledging leakage, and promotes efficient or smart units as personal climate action. By omitting this broader context, such messaging distorts public understanding and encourages high-energy cooling choices.
According to the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition, climate mis- and disinformation often relies on ‘deceptive or misleading content that misrepresents scientific data, including by omission or cherry-picking, in order to erode trust in climate science, climate-focused institutions, experts, and solutions.’
On the global climate debate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shapes how governments plan for mitigation and adaptation, which is why its framing matters in the debate about heat and cooling.
Communications scholar Michael Brüggemann of the University of Hamburg writes that climate journalism often reinforces this tendency by focusing on short-term events or new technologies rather than the structural causes of the crisis.
‘Climate coverage is driven by media events, such as international climate summits, while long-term trends and structural causes of climate change receive less sustained attention’, he notes.
Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Climate Action Against Disinformation shows that portraying technology as the primary climate solution shifts attention away from structural change. It reframes comfort and gadget ownership as climate action while concealing the social and ecological costs.
Researchers at Navarra University, Spain, in a 2024 study noted the AC use is rising, but warn it cannot be the primary adaptation tool because it increases energy use, adds to urban heat, and is unaffordable for many low-income households. Their analysis of residential buildings shows that greater reliance on cooling drives up electricity demand, contributes to urban heat, and remains unaffordable for many low-income households.
Critics argue that the belief that machinery or gadgets will save people while structural vulnerabilities and social inequalities remain unaddressed is a form of climate misinformation. This helps build the foundation for disinformation when powerful actors try to shape public opinion to shift responsibility away from states, governments, or institutions in charge of climate policies. The Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition in its explainer says one common tactic in climate disinformation is to overstate the promise of technological fixes, creating the impression that systemic reforms are unnecessary.
Shifting responsibility for climate action away from city, state, and national governments and onto individual households or people is part of a well-documented political tactic that diminishes the scale of change possible and enables the perpetuation of systemic social, political, and environmental failures.
Powering a cool boom
Studies by the German Institute of Urban Affairs and Agora Energiewende show that rising demand for cooling is already straining Germany’s power grid. A 2024 Agora analysis warned that if household air conditioning use rises from 19 to 35 per cent, electricity demand during heatwaves could surge by up to 12 gigawatts, roughly equal to the output of 10 coal power plants. Total electricity demand during the summer in Germany ranges between 50 and 70 gigawatts. Cooling alone has the potential to raise summertime consumption by 20 per cent.
The system continues: the hotter it gets, the more people cool their homes, the more energy is used, and the more the planet warms. Germany’s total summer electricity demand ranges between 50 and 70 gigawatts.
The global footprint of comfort
Europe’s ‘material foot print’ is growing and the externalised costs on communities that supply Europe’s comfort cannot be ignored. Rising demand for cooling technologies puts extractive pressures on climate-vulnerable regions where raw materials are sourced.
‘From a product lifecycle standpoint, we here in Germany are at least partly responsible for such ecological and social outcomes, by virtue of our increasing dependence on imported raw materials and the products made from them’, says Umweltbundesamt in a report, Resources and Its Consequences.
According to UN Comtrade data on the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) platform, the West African nation of Guinea supplied roughly 72 per cent of Germany’s aluminium-ore imports in 2023. Human Rights Watch and the International Aluminium Institute have documented how bauxite extraction in Guinea pollutes the drinking water and strips the farmland, displacing communities and damaging local ecosystems. Environmental assessments by the International Aluminium Institute also show that bauxite extraction leaves large areas of land degraded when mining companies fail to restore the sites.
Additionally, in order to support demand for cooling technologies, Germany imports copper ores from Brazil, Indonesia, Chile, and Peru, according to 2023 data from WITS. Environmental watchdogs MiningWatch and the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre link copper extraction in these regions to deforestation, water contamination, and land degradation. Amnesty International and the OECD report widespread abuses in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, underscoring how European demand for metals used to mitigate heatwaves caused by climate change are recreating practices of extractive colonialism.
Designing real resilience
Back in her apartment, Leila Mertens looks at her small white AC unit. ‘I am grateful for it, she says. But I would rather live in a city built to keep everyone cool, not only those who can afford machines.’
Environmental groups agree with her sentiments. The Transparent Building Envelope association (RTG), which represents Germany’s façade and shading sector, argues that design must become the first line of defence against heat. Buildings, it says, should remain comfortable without relying on energy-hungry cooling technologies.
Experts at the Berlin-based think tank Adelphi share this view. They say adaptation must go beyond quick technical fixes and link resilience with social and environmental justice.
Beyond the quick fix
Cooling saves lives, and for many people, including the elderly and chronically ill, air conditioning will remain essential. Yet experts warn it cannot become the automatic response to extreme heat. Environmental groups emphasise that the aim is not to eliminate air conditioning but to place it within a broader strategy. Environmental Action Germany says heat protection must be treated as a public health responsibility rather than a matter of individual comfort. That means designing shaded streets, providing community cooling centres, and supporting those most at risk while ensuring Germany’s adaptation efforts do not push environmental costs onto other regions.
French philosopher Bruno Latour once described the climate crisis as a shared condition, not a technical puzzle with a single solution. Experts increasingly echo that view. Rising heat cannot be managed by technology alone. Social infrastructure, fair planning, and collective responsibility matter just as much.
There is no single fix for a warming world. The strongest protection combines passive cooling, building retrofits, early warning systems, and targeted social care. The task now is to bring these elements together in ways that protect people without exporting harm, ensuring that adaptation is both effective and fair.
The research for this article was made possible thanks to the support of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue’s Climate Change Disinformation Media Fellowship 2025.
The views and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union | Global Dialogue.
