European Climate Policy - Why Europe Discourages Air Conditioning. The Climate Caliphate Explained
European climate policy and energy policy have produced a long list of unintended consequences. These include higher mortality during heatwaves, rising social costs, increasing administrative burdens, more bureaucracy, a weaker economy, and an ever-growing body of regulations that many European citizens can no longer make sense of.
It is a political system that bears strong similarities to what can only be described as a climate caliphate. There was no direct democratic mandate for this European climate policy, nor is there meaningful democratic oversight. Instead, it is imposed through the European Union and enforced by unelected judges whenever governments or citizens attempt to resist it.
The question is therefore simple: why are we doing this to ourselves?
Apart from a small activist minority, largely represented by non-elected NGOs such as Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion, no European citizen has ever explicitly voted for this climate policy.
Despite media coverage, this summer is not exceptional. Heatwaves have always occurred, and in Southern Europe, hot summers have been a normal part of life for centuries. Ironically, the only genuine "climate migrants" are not moving from hot countries to cooler ones, but the other way around. Retirees and others who can afford it continue to relocate to Southern Europe for the sunshine. This is nothing new; it has been happening for generations.
Outside Europe, energy is still regarded as a basic necessity. The United States is a good example. The southern states have flourished for decades thanks to two inventions that fundamentally transformed everyday life: the automobile and air conditioning. Countries such as Israel have also experienced strong productivity growth while virtually every building has air conditioning. Meanwhile, productivity in large parts of Europe, particularly Southern Europe, has stagnated for decades.
This is hardly surprising. Few people can work efficiently during extreme heat. Comfortably cooled buildings are not a luxury but a prerequisite for a productive society. Unlike the weather outside, the indoor climate of a building can be controlled.
Yet air conditioning in Europe is increasingly treated almost as a climate sin. Ever stricter energy performance regulations have resulted in buildings that are so well insulated that heat becomes trapped during the summer months. As a result, a hot spell turns into a prolonged ordeal for many people.
At the same time, heat pumps are being heavily subsidized. Ironically, a heat pump is technically nothing more than an air conditioner operating in reverse. The same system can both heat and cool a building. Nevertheless, relatively few European buildings are equipped with air conditioning. If widespread air conditioning were combined with nuclear energy, Europe could enjoy affordable, virtually CO₂-free electricity while providing a far more comfortable living environment.
So why does Europe refuse to make that choice?
Why was a schoolgirl on strike with documented mental health problems welcomed by Ursula von der Leyen instead of being guided by professionals? And why was an extensive package of climate legislation, such as Frans Timmermans' Fit for 55, introduced without European citizens ever having the opportunity to vote on it directly?
Why has there never been a referendum?
Why has a policy with such far-reaching consequences never been submitted directly to the people?
In our view, no other region outside Europe pursues an energy policy that undermines its own competitiveness, public welfare and prosperity as much as European climate policy.
The social costs are enormous: higher energy bills, lower economic growth, and during hot summers, unnecessary deaths because access to comfortable cooling is not considered self-evident.
With such policies, Europe will never become the world's most dynamic continent. That was the ambition of the Lisbon Agenda, which aimed to make Europe the world's most competitive knowledge economy by 2010. Reality turned out very differently.
Since then, prosperity has grown primarily in Asia and the United States. There, energy is viewed as a fundamental requirement for economic development, not as something that should first and foremost be discouraged.
It is time for European citizens to speak out and hold politicians accountable for the policies they have pursued.
Or must things become even worse before Europe finally wakes up?
The hundreds of billions of euros already spent are only the beginning. Under current climate policies, hundreds of billions more are expected to follow. Every one of those billions is taken from society, the same society where, in Germany alone, around half a million industrial jobs have already disappeared as a result of climate policy.
Less prosperity and higher costs are neither economically sustainable nor socially affordable.
Image credits: Neda Astani via Unsplash
