What Would Happen if the Globe Used AC Like We Do?
It's summer, and those air conditioners (central and window-mounted alike) are chugging away ferociously to beat the heat in the United States. No wonder, with the weather being hot and sticky in many US cities (notorious heat sinks thanks to all the pavement) as well as outlying areas. The only way
Posted — UpdatedClimate advocates and researchers are starting to get worried about what might happen as countries in the global south start adopting air conditioning. As the level of income and standard of living rise in nations like China and India, more residents are and will be buying air conditioners to manage the temperature in their homes. Particularly in hot, crowded cities like Mumbai, where the heat may have been managed for hundreds of years via a variety of other tactics, but the temptation of air conditioning will probably prove to be too much.
Consequently, we may see a spike in global energy use as air conditioners crowd the windows and homes of people all over the world; the US is certainly unlikely to retain the dubious honor of using more energy on air conditioning than the rest of the world for much longer. In fact, Mumbai alone could use as much as 25% of the energy the US uses just to cool itself. That's a single Indian city!