HONG KONG IS COOL. And not just in the metaphorical sense. Fully 99% of homes in the southern Chinese city are well-chilled thanks to technology. With hot, humid summers, and mild winters, air-conditioners are ubiquitous, and most residents use them for much of the year.
Fortunately, energy bills are relatively low, with about 20% of power coming inexpensively from a nuclear power plant on the mainland.
Still, the Hong Kong leadership recognizes that it is not environmentally friendly to keep just expanding the number of “aircons” (or “ACs”) and the period during which they are used, so are actively running experiments on cheaper ways to cool a computer.
In this city, we’re lucky – but we get a lot of foreign visitors, and it’s clear from talking to them, that not everyone manages to keep cool. With the steady increase in temperatures around the world it is becoming increasingly obvious which parts of the globe can mitigate the heat and which cannot.
PLACES WHICH LIKE TO KEEP COOL
In the warm parts of Asia, air-conditioning is a part of life, particularly in the hot and humid parts, such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and so on. Much of China is less hot and humid, but with the growth of the middle class in mainland China this aircon “itch” has caught on there too, with 60% of homes having AC units installed.
The same is true in some of America. Ever since the device was invented by Willis Carrier in 1902 there has been a strong divide in the West when it comes to the necessity of its use. In many humid states in America, it is essential for relief from the strong humidity that the middle and southern states suffer from.
Watch our video on how China makes the world’s aircons, or scroll further down to read more of this article.
Even in poorer parts of the world, such as in South American nations and Southeast Asia, possession of an “AC” or “aircon” is seen a status symbol, something people generally strive for in their lives. Others do without. Africa has low take-up on the devices, and India was low until recent heat-waves caused a sharp rise.
ONE EXCEPTION
Yet there is one outlying subcontinent among the rich, developed economies, that has fallen short in this process: Europe. In 2022 it was reported by the International Energy Agency that an average of only 19% of Europeans had AC in homes. With global warming becoming more evident every year, that has to change. AC purchases are steadily increasing on the continent with the market set to reach a new threshold of US$46.8 billion by 2030, according to analysts. This initiative is driven by the consumer rather than government policy.
Ironically, most of the companies providing these A/C units are from China, with no sign of European governments taking the initiative to create domestic suppliers.
CAN’T SOLVE THE ISSUE
This raises the obvious question of why European nations and the EU do not try to address this issue. As temperate countries on the continent continue to see yearly increases in temperatures, with deadly heat waves becoming ever more present, surely the governments should be looking at this – so why don’t they? The answer is that they may have tied their own hands.
European countries have been accelerating green measures to bring about a reduced carbon footprint. In doing so, they closed nuclear reactors and turned to renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind. But they have not expanded their renewable energy as successfully as China, and appear to have shut down too many nuclear power plants too quickly.
Until recently, Russia for decades managed to plug the gap by selling inexpensive gas to European nations. But geopolitical machinations of various sorts in the past three years led to European leaders being politically or physically unable to continue using Russian fuel. They switched to American fuel, far more expensive, resulting in a huge loss of manufacturing ability.
ENERGY CRISIS
The result is in some cases governments work to reduce their citizens’ electricity consumption – sometimes even by force (such as in Germany in 2022) with mandatory blackouts and “work only days” where electricity was only available for businesses, and not for individual use.
This energy crisis faced by Europe along with the increase in temperatures have left the continent in the worst position possible. So, while European citizens would love to have AC in their homes, they unfortunately cannot afford to pay current energy bills, let alone additional costs of running air conditioners.
There have been strides to make AC units more efficient and “green” (as mentioned, there has been significant work on this in Hong Kong). But the attitude of European leaders is to reduce the use of such amenities, not to make them more efficient.
This leaves Europeans sweltering in the heat, while most of the world, especially Hong Kong, does not.
If Hong Kong does succeed in finding new ways to cool buildings in a more environmentally efficient manner, that will benefit the whole world.
But until then, European visitors to Hong Kong will keep on envying our well-chilled homes, before heading back home to increasingly sweltering nights.
Image at the top from Pixabay.