00:00For more, we can bring in Diana Urgevors. That's the vice chair of the intergovernmental panel on
00:04climate change. Good morning. Just tell us, what's your view here on this political debate
00:08over air con for all versus long term climate policies? Is this just addressing the symptoms
00:13and not really the root causes? Thank you very much. It's a very important question.
00:19Not only is it not only addressing the symptoms, but in fact, really aggravating climate change
00:25and aggravating even local warming in the cities, because air conditioning, what it does
00:29is actually puts the local indoor heat out on the streets. Actually, it makes the urban heat even
00:35worse. And also global warming, because cooling is expected to add 25% more electricity demand
00:44until 2030 than even data centers, which means that if we only compare to artificial intelligence,
00:51this is about five times as much. We talk a lot about the energy from artificial intelligence,
00:57but not so much from cooling. At the same time, of course, it is very important that we are providing
01:03thermal safety to our residents because heat is killing in Europe. It can kill as much as 40,000 to
01:1060,000 excess deaths, so people in a hot summer all over Europe. So it is crucial. But I would
01:18consider
01:20taking the Swiss approach, which means that we provide access, allow access to the elderly
01:25or the vulnerable groups. And otherwise, we try to implement measures that in the few really extreme
01:32days, such as what we are experiencing now in some countries and some countries are already over,
01:36we'd rather take temporary measures to provide safety, for example, in cooling centers during those
01:43days, which happen just a few days about every year. So far, it will, for a while, it will really
01:48only
01:48hurt us a few days every couple of years. But then we have to take these measures, for example,
01:55cooling centers, or also have to accept that perhaps there will be temporary reductions in
02:00productivity, and perhaps home officing and other measures can help in these difficult situations.
02:08And I'm not sure if you've seen, but the European Commission is under criticism for turning off the
02:11AC for some of its staff and leaving it on for others higher up in buildings. I guess this shows
02:17really the wider problem we have across Europe, as you're describing, regarding access.
02:22Exactly. So access to air conditioning is a crucial issue. At the same time, it is also, again,
02:28important that to understand that the solution is not universal access to everywhere, everything,
02:34because right now, exactly the very reasons why it had to be turned off is because of capacity
02:40shortages. And if they suddenly try to provide access to everyone, that means that our capacities
02:46won't be able to survive, because we are now already jeopardizing the success of the green energy
02:53transition, because what we see is that we are now adding more energy demand that we are able to
03:00provide with new sources of renewable power, despite our unexpected success with the deployment of
03:08renewable energy sources. But certainly, of course, it doesn't mean that the elites of the elites will
03:14have to have access and the others don't. So we do have to look at everyone's needs. But again, I
03:21do
03:21believe that perhaps temporary measures where everyone has a temporary arrangement for these few days
03:27to get by and still be able to work, but even more to be able to stay healthy is more
03:33important than
03:33the solution to have full access immediately to everyone to air conditioning. Because the problem
03:39is once you have access to air conditioning, the culture also changes. We have a lot of cultural
03:45adaptations to hot days and how we get by in heat. And we would lose all of this if we
03:54suddenly have
03:54all air conditioners. Okay, Diana Urjvorsas, thank you so much for your insights there and for joining us.
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