It is a good time to be in the air-conditioning business.
As my colleagues at Bloomberg News write, an additional 1 billion cooling units are expected to be installed by the end of the decade. It is one of the main ways in which humans are adapting to more frequent and intense heatwaves.
With a potentially strong El Nino on the horizon — a climate pattern that increases global temperatures — and greenhouse gas emissions still higher than ever, the world is facing another record-breaking summer, and another one, and another and so on.
Illustration: Constance chou
For many, owning an air conditioner has become a matter of survival rather than comfort.
However, it creates a vicious cycle: The hotter the Earth gets, the more air conditioners people would need or want to install.
However, air conditioners are a disaster for the planet, containing toxic coolants with greater warming potential than carbon dioxide, and drawing on precious energy resources. So more air conditioners means more potential warming, which means more air conditioners.
While air conditioning has, no doubt, allowed humans to live in more extreme environments — just like heating at the other end of the temperature spectrum — new research shows that, just like other animals, humans are tied to a climate niche.
Going back millennia, this niche is the mean annual temperature (MAT) associated with the best conditions for humans to flourish.
An analysis of global population density gives us a peak MAT of about 13°C, and a second smaller peak at 27°C — associated with monsoon climates in South Asia.
These are the zones in which we thrive. The dip in the middle corresponds with drier climates that are not as suitable for us, our livestock or our crops; therefore, it has lower population densities, as seen in parts of the Middle East.
The temperature zone is no coincidence: GDP peaks at about 13°C, and if the temperature shifts, productivity falls.
For context, New York City and Milan have MATs of about 13°C.
The study, published in Nature, explores the human cost of rising global temperatures, taking a helicopter view on what works for people, and how climate change would alter that.
Policies and action put the world on track for 2.7°C of warming above pre-industrial temperatures by 2100. This would leave a staggering 2 billion people — 22 percent of the projected end-of-century population — exposed to unprecedented heat, defined as a MAT of 29°C and above.
India — set to be the world’s second-biggest market for cooling units after China by 2050 — and Nigeria would be the worst affected in terms of population, with a combined 900 million people living in dangerously hot temperatures.
Hundreds of millions of people would get pushed into the middle ground that has not historically supported dense human populations. That poses huge challenges for adaptation.
Air conditioning can help with the physiological effects of heat, and there are more climate-friendly ways of keeping cities cool with innovative construction and vegetation, but that is only part of the problem.
Given human reliance on plants and animals for food, which typically share human temperature preferences, and a plentiful water supply, exposure to such extreme heat would be existential for some areas — especially as the worst-hit areas are some of the poorest regions in the world and might not be able to afford to adapt.
“There will be parts of the world population that would be better off moving,” said Marten Scheffer, one of the study authors and an ecologist at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands.
Air conditioning is a poor band-aid for a huge systemic problem, and mass climate migration out of these areas is inevitable.
If the 2 billion estimate is accurate — bearing in mind that it does not account for sea-level change and other climate threats — that is a monumental challenge.
Migration events often lead to conflict and poor outcomes for refugees even at comparatively small magnitudes. A conversation about how to reaccommodate swathes of the global population while avoiding those problems has to start now.
The best way to keep humanity in its optimal climate niche would be to limit warming to the 1.5°C temperature target. Doing so, the study says, would mean a fivefold decrease in the population exposed to unprecedented heat. Every increment counts — for every 0.1°C of warming above 1.2°C, another 140 million people are exposed to dangerous heat.
Flip that on its head, Scheffer said, and there is a more positive message: For every 0.1°C of warming prevented, another 140 million people do not have to move away from their homes.
Here is to breaking the cycle — before entire regions become effectively uninhabitable.
Lara Williams is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS