As climate change drives more frequent and intense heatwaves, this opinion piece argues that expanding access to air conditioning, rather than restricting it on environmental grounds, is essential to protecting lives and livelihoods worldwide. The author challenges the "degrowth" framing common among some environmental campaigners, contending that denying AC to billions in hot, low-income countries would be both unethical and economically damaging, even though rising cooling demand will itself add significantly to global emissions.

The article cites projections that if warming exceeds 3C above pre-industrial levels, one in six major cities would face month-long heatwaves annually, with Delhi potentially seeing 140 days above 35C. Currently only about 8% of the 2.8 billion people in the world's hottest regions have air conditioning, compared with 90% of households in the US and Japan, but the IEA expects the global AC stock to more than double to 5.6 billion units by 2050, with India's inventory rising 23-fold. This will sharply increase energy demand and could push cooling-related emissions from 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2022 to nearly 8 billion tonnes by 2050, yet the author argues the alternative — accepting higher heat-related deaths and lost economic productivity — is unacceptable, citing evidence that AC cut US heat mortality by around 75% since 1900.