Climate2 min read
Climate
Air Conditioning Saves Thousands of US Lives a Year, but Warms the Planet
A Yale-led study found that air conditioning cut heat-related deaths in the U.S. by 57%, saving an average of 5,267 lives a year, but the emissions from powering it are projected to rise sharply in the coming decades.
Step by step
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Heat waves push up AC use
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AC cuts US heat deaths sharply
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Most cooling power burns fossil fuels
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Emissions rise, worsening climate change
A nationwide study found that air conditioning cut heat-related deaths in the United States by more than half β but at a rising climate cost. Published Monday in Nature Health, it found air conditioning saved nearly 58,000 U.S. lives from 2010 to 2020 β averaging 5,267 a year β by cutting by 57%.
Yale researchers led by Lingzhi Chu, with Kai Chen and Narasimha Rao, ran the first nationwide study to measure actual air conditioning use, not just ownership, analyzing 3,108 U.S. counties from 2010 to 2020 through Yale's data platform and 30 million death records. The most lives were saved in Arizona, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast; over a dozen northern states, from Washington to Maine, saved fewer than 10 lives a year each.
The protective effect levels off past a certain point: cranking air conditioning up further does not save more lives, researchers said, and more than half the cases studied counted as overuse. Many places treat 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius) as a reasonable limit. Even with air conditioning, risk still rises on days of extreme heat.
Most cooling electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, and the United Nations projects heat-trapping gas emissions from air conditioning to rise from 4.5 billion to 7.2 billion tons over 25 years β nearly matching U.S. and European carbon pollution. "Air conditioning from a climate change perspective is not ideal," said Kai Chen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. "It leads to more carbon emissions ... then it accelerates the climate warming problem."
More than a quarter of U.S. households report difficulty affording their energy use, the study found. Citing a global energy crunch from the war in Iran, eight countries β Bangladesh, Cambodia, Jordan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Seychelles, Singapore and Sri Lanka β have limited how cool office air conditioning can be, the International Energy Agency said.
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#air conditioning#heat deaths#climate change#Yale University#greenhouse gas emissions
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