In recent years, Europe’s late springs and summers have gotten hotter and hotter. The data is brutal, with tens of thousands of Europeans dying from heat-related causes every year. 2024 was one of the worst years for Europe as far as heat and heat-related deaths. Currently, Europe is in the middle of yet another catastrophic heat wave. While countries like Spain and Italy deal with the heat by turning on air conditioning, other countries like France and Germany choose to villainize air conditioning and refuse to change public policy around health and safety. The AP just published a brutal piece about all of the heat-stroke deaths in France in recent weeks, deaths which have overwhelmed French mortuaries. Instead of changing public policy around AC, one French official has decided to… blame America.
A Paris official has said she holds the US partially responsible for the record-breaking heatwave in France. The comments were made as part of a scathing rebuke to American tourists, immigrants and expats who have been criticising France for its lack of air conditioning across the country. Over the past week, the transatlantic discourse online has also been heating up, with some Americans – many living in desert and tropical climes in the southern US – mocking the French and Western Europeans for not being able to withstand temperatures to which they are accustomed to every year.
“Dear American journalists and social media ‘influencers’: for days, some of you have been criticising and making fun of Paris because the city does not have A/C in every room…OMG, this is so rich!” wrote Audrey Pulvar, deputy mayor of Paris for international relations, on social media. “As the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, you bear a significant amount of responsibility for global warming and the consequences we, in France, are experiencing. Your cities, which are 90 per cent air conditioned, are not unrelated to this.”
After listing Paris’s green initiatives, Ms Pulvar ended her posts by criticising the US for what she described as the country’s disdain for the planet. “So please, enough with the lecture. Just start doing your part. Best regards.”
Unlike the US, where air conditioning is common, in France only one in four households has air conditioning. Historically, the French have been sceptical about air conditioning: an Ipsos survey published earlier this month found that 78 per cent of French people believe that it’s bad for the environment and one in six respondents said they would rather suffer for the sake of the planet.
But last week’s record-breaking temperatures have shown that attitudes have shifted, with retailers across the country selling out of portable air conditioning units and videos capturing shoppers forming long queues and tearing at pallets holding units freshly offloaded from delivery trucks.
Preliminary mortality figures released Sunday by Public Health France show that the country has registered 1,000 more deaths than previous months since the peak of the heatwave on Wednesday, when temperatures edged past the 40C threshold in many parts of France. The number of home deaths also spiked by 40 per cent during that time. But the minister of health also warned that heat-related illnesses can last long after the heatwave has ended, and that the mortality rate could rise.
“One in six respondents said they would rather suffer for the sake of the planet….” Do they realize that they’re not just making that choice for themselves, but for their parents and grandparents? True story: it takes more energy (and it’s more expensive) to heat a home in winter than cool it down with AC in summer. Following this logic, shouldn’t people turn off their heat and “suffer” through frigid, below-freezing temperatures in winter for the environment? Why is hypothermia acknowledged as a bad thing but heat stroke is not? As for Audrey Pulvar… it feels like French officials are unprepared for all of the attention and criticism they’re getting on social media, as the rest of the world is seeing this crisis unfold in real time. It actually warms my heart (or cools my heart, as I have the AC running right now) to see that French people are starting to wake up to reality and they’re now buying air-conditioning units as soon as the units come off the truck. Welcome to the dark side, AC should be a human right!!
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Le Diner du Crif en presence de Audrey Pulvar au Carrousel du Louvre,Image: 755949766, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Jonathan Rebboah/Avalon
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- Audrey Pulvar,Image: 851499871, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Baptiste Autissier/Avalon
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- France’s President Emmanuel Macron welcomes Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tarik ahead of a meeting at The Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on June 29, 2026. Emmanuel Macron recoit sa Majeste Haitham bin Tarik Sultan d’Oman,Image: 1113375722, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Lionel Guericolas/Avalon
Bitch, please. Lol.
It’s true that the U.S. is contributing immensely to global warming, especially because of our shithole government. So I’m going to say that the French official is not wrong. They should also use air conditioning more, like some other European countries do. So in the end, Trump is really destroying the world, as many predicted he would.
I’ve been thinking this all along. Climate change is a predominantly American made disaster and we need to own that. I felt so guilty about the 2024 election, knowing the future of the planet was in the hands of uneducated minions as the world watched in horror.
Trump’s acceleration policies aside, experts have been arguing for decades that this would be the natural, inevitable culmination of decades of inaction on the part of our government and China, India, Russia etc,
The thing that kills me is that we could so easily have had access to abundant, clean energy for the last 20 years but fossil fuel lobbyists and the power brokers in DC refuse to allow it.
That being said, to blame ACs is ridiculous. In the northeast we have mostly window ACs (although heating and cooling pumps are becoming more popular due to rebate programs) but we use them only a few months out of the year. We just went weeks without using ours because the weather has been so nice in Boston and it’s been very cool at night. Her comment feels like she’s scapegoating us because French people continue to dig their heals in over a false narrative.
Sorry but she’s right
yes, she is. AC for everyone won’t solve the problem.
Definitely, it’s absurd how the rest of the world has to suffer because Americans won’t move with the times and decarbonise.
AC may be necessary in some cases, but it’s also like taking heroin to satisfy your heroin craving, it just makes things worse.
Also unlike boilers, most Europeans have never needed AC before, so your asking them to spend a lot of money installing these things at a time when the economy is awful due to Trump’s war.
Canadian here and she is 100% right. If the USA had lead the way on environmental issues decades ago, the world would be in a much different place right now. Instead, it is burning. The wealthy don’t care because it doesn’t affect them – but we are all wasting too much energy and water. Most of us in North America live in conditions that aren’t sustainable.
Thanks. Another Canadian here. I knew Celebitchies would sort this out and find the gray areas. It’s embarrassing how far behind Canada is in reducing emissions and ramping up the use of renewables. Where is even the encouragement for us to use more solar panels? We actually get enough sun for that. Why aren’t we more urgently harnessing our abundant wind power? Why is there so much sprawl around our cities? Why are we so frustratingly slow to improve transit, in our cities and between our far-flung provinces? I agree, life as we knew it is not sustainable — all of it — diet and agriculture, transportation, construction, industry, recreation… But politicians are short-term thinkers and people are in shock and denial. We need leadership and urgency. Paris has been a leader among ‘green’ cities, which means it has reduced its contributions to global warming. Should it have foreseen the need for more air conditioning? Of course. But what are the rest of us not doing that we could have foreseen? Sympathies for the many dead.
So many things you can criticize us Americans for. This… is not one of them. There was a debate for weeks on Twitter over this issue. Yes Europeans, join us in air-conditioned bliss!
Most Europeans have never needed AC before so you’re asking us to spend a lot of money installing something we’ll only need a few weeks a year. On top of that the main reason we’ll need it in the future is because America is being selfish and not decarbonising.
That’s not bliss, it’s extortion.
Thanks Holley. As an American in Canada, I also want to put in a word about far down US public spaces set air conditioning, expending more energy than is needed for appropriately cool that saves lives but doesn’t require sweaters. Canada also uses air conditioning in public spaces and is setting laws for max temps in apartments, but it doesn’t make things freezing! The high-demand areas in the US will experience more brownouts and even blackouts due to the high electricity consumption. It’s not all bliss. There is a cost.
Look at the size of American cars, houses, the huge RV’s being towed by giant pickups, boats, toys of the wealthy, of course we are culpable for climate change, we are a hugely entitled and wasteful society.
All of the examples you listed (especially our penchant for giant cars) are better examples than the AC.
The hope is for engineering that rapidly makes AC more energy-efficient. Conversion to heat pumps may help too. Massachusetts has indeed subsidized their use but not seeing this in the regions that need it most. Federal, top-down leadership is required.
I live in Houston. How people managed to exist in this climate before AC is a mystery to me. The heat and humidity have always been brutal. Sure, they’ve gotten worse. But AC was needed 200 years ago just as it is now. People managed without it but were no doubt miserable (and malarial).
I get what she is saying but it’s a bad look right now. There is no use pointing fingers when people are suffering. It’s her job to make it better, not pass the buck. I read that some hospitals in Germany don’t even have AC, which is wild. You NEED it in a hospital even if heat waves are rare. Come on.
She is partially right. On the AC issue, we disagree though. I agree with Kaiser, AC is a necessity if it’s hot where you live. Asking people in Arizona or Nevada to turn the AC off is ridiculous and dangerous for them. But the US is a leader in greenhouse emissions – this is so much more than AC – and a lot of it has to do with livestock and farming. The mass bombings in the Middle East are an environmental disaster, there was black rain in Tehran for crying out loud.
These private jets are also massive polluters. Giant cruise ships are destroying the oceans and coral – they are the biggest ocean polluters around and yet, if I had a dollar for every time I run into someone who tells me they are going on a cruise. Sigh…
We as a populace, not just the US, are overwhelmingly selfish – it’s why we are in this mess. We need to ban the use the plastic bags like Rwanda did. We need massive cleanup of oceans and rivers. We need more people working remotely – less cars on the road. Covid did so much for the environment, all of our asses at home literally started to repair the ozone layer. We need to consume less meat.
Most importantly right now we should be pushing back on AI data centers, which are causing massive droughts all of the US. The US is running out of water, and what do you think will happen when this occurs? They will invade other countries to steal their water beginning with Canada. We don’t need AI and mass surveillance. We don’t need it. Billionaires have presented it like it’s this get on the train or get left behind thing – that is complete BS.
But why were cities in AZ designed to require so much driving? When Arizona was predictably going to be one of the most impacted regions in earth by climate change, why was so much suburban sprawl zoned? AZ could have had so many green communities and walkable neighborhoods like the U of A district. But no. We’ve allowed oil companies to dictate America urban planning and drive up – literally – greenhouse emissions.
AC is a necessity to survive in many places. But France didn’t build an entire culture around oil consumption. So they have every right to call out those of us who did.
This is @MightyMolly, indeed, you are correct! “France didn’t build an entire culture around oil consumption,” as we did in the US — France built an energy infrastructure around nuclear power, which is much cheaper, more reliable, and does not require period conflict in the Middle East, and does not cause any damage to the Ozone layer through greenhouse gas emissions. So you avoid war abroad, boom and bust cycles at home, and planetary meltdown. Could Americans have tried this? Why, yes, we invented it. We developed the technology. Then we used it to bomb people and build up massive arsenals. Kennedy said, we have to kill these weapons before they kill us. We did something else — we kept building the weapons, and used them to back up threats to invade other countries in search of oil, which we burn, which is choking the planet. She does have a point.
I mean yes and no. France is ranked the 14th largest consumer of oil which is fairly high for a European country–they’re not Norway or Iceland in terms of utilizing renewable energy. That being said, they’re not anywhere near as car-dependent as we are and your point about terrible urban planning is fundamental to the larger argument. For instance, European countries are not covered in the capitalistic hellholes that are stroads, which cause severe, localized air, noise, and run-off pollution. Their cities are designed to disincentivize car usage and encourage alternate forms of transportation. They don’t generally have cul-de-sac neighborhoods full of new-builds because they understand the importance of flow, accessibility, and building residential communities around town squares and commercial districts.
We have a lot to learn from other countries but it’s really hard to break the American addiction to driving everywhere.
3/4 of the housing in Paris is covered by zinc roofs…while they make a charming old world picturesque view…zinc is a HEAT ACCELERATOR 🥵 adding 20+ degrees to already sweltering buildings…which 😱💔
Hey, do you have a link or source for “it takes more energy (and it’s more expensive) to heat a home in winter than cool it down with AC in summer” so I can show it to some of my a-hole family members? I’m not disagreeing or doubting you cause I have epilepsy – seizures can & will kill me more quickly than most other people of my age & general condition if I get too hot (like a power outage during a heatwave). I know heat is far more dangerous that most physically healthy neurotypical people can understand, so having data & supporting sources when I have this conversation IRL really helps. (bc I know arguing online doesn’t usually change any minds and try to avoid it, though posting well-sourced proof to support my opinion makes me feel better).
I’ll still DuckDuckGo the answer (I gave up google searches when they went fully AI & became fully useless to me), but if someone has a link handy I’d love to see & read it.
i’m not sure if you can post links here, but this is from the MIT climate portal. the header so you can search that if the link doesn’t work: Globally, heating creates much more climate pollution than air conditioning, and that’s often true at the level of a single building too. But emissions from air conditioning are rising faster.
link: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/does-heating-or-cooling-our-buildings-contribute-more-climate-change
Is there room for an argument that says, it’s not that straightforwardly about AC or no AC? We use it when we have to – or can afford it. Energy prices in the US are very low, compared to Europe. We think energy is a valuable commodity not to be wasted, hence the price. Obviously it is different in the US. Take Las Vegas. Who in their right minds would build something like Las Vegas. Your carbon footprint is 13 to 17 metric tons per capita, European is at about 11 metric tons / capita and sinking. Insofar I don’t think you can school us.
We are, of course, doing our best to keep our vulnerable neighbors safe, including installing AC. So, please get off your moral middle class America high horse and stop pretending your way is the only way. I am repeating myself, maybe, but nowhere in mainland France is south of Maine latitude wise. We built to keep us warm for centuries, many of us are living in buildings that are older than your country.
Think about it, before you insult
your European readership .
WORD!!!
This!!!!
Huzzah! That tendency of people in the US to think everyone is like them and theirs is the best/only way of life is … irritating to say the least.
I survived the Paris heatwave and live to tell the tale. It was brutal.
The subject of air-conditioning is becoming more and more political (like abortion on the US) and honestly both right and left are not serving the public’s best interest. Yes, schools and hospital need air-conditioning, the elderly and people with heart conditions need them too. No, Paris cannot magically rid itself of all of its zinc roofs, plant trees on side streets and institute an air-conditioning unit in each apartment or studio as a human right. A lot of buildings don’t have lifts as well.
As for the “let’s blame the US for our problems part”. Yes, she is exaggerating, but she is not completely wrong either. There seems to be a noticeable shift in how Americans are perceived in Europe. The heat was not easy on anyone, but it was the hardest for the people who were living in the city and had to go to work and take care of their loved ones, yet the people to complain were American tourists.
I read a lot of science fiction back in the 60s and 70s (think Asimov and the Foundation trilogy) and a recurring theme was how the earth was no longer habitable in the future. It didn’t seem possible then but as we hear natural catastrophes becoming more prevalent, it’s not so unbelievable.
Yup, that’s the “science” part of science fiction. Predicted and predictable. The fiction part is how humanity responds.
I have to agree that this is bigger than just ACs. We, in the US, have chosen to develop our country and a certain way of life that is incredibly wasteful when it comes to resources like water and energy. The Europeans are currently enduring a heatwave and we in the US get wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes, all of which are getting worse. So, we Americans need to stay off our high horses.
I don’t think she’s wrong at all. The United States has been an outlier for decades now in regards to green policies. And under Trump, the motto has been “drill baby drill“. Even China is making more efforts towards clean air and clean energy. And all of this affects the global environment.
I love what China is doing in terms of renewable energy and scaling back fossil fuel dependence but it’s not enough to offset their 13B tons of annual CO2 emissions.
What I find really sad is that while China is the largest annual polluter, the United States remains the largest cumulative historical contributor of emissions since 1751. 🙁
What a reputation to have…..
She’s not wrong, but not completely right either. But LoL at her job being deputy mayor of Paris for international relations, on social media and lashing out at a whole country. Hilarious
The US has made itself an easy target.