ANDN June 2025 Indian Government (GOI) that all new air conditioning systems (ACS) in homes, commercial spaces and vehicles have to operate in the temperature range of 20 ° C to 28 ° C, with the default 24 ° C settings. by 16 million tons. Although such energy saving measures are important, especially in a period of potential energy lack of energy, fundamental problems should be solved. Access to air conditioning is currently seriously limited in developing countries, including India. Increasing this approach is urgently required to protect public health and the need to adapt to climate change. Treatment of cooling primarily as energy and emission concerns needs to be universalized by access to cooling and providing public devices that can protect the vulnerable population from thermal stress, often delay.
In India, access to air conditioning remains seriously insufficient and the main challenge is not excessive consumption, but insufficiency. Since rising temperatures undermine both comfort and living, cooling is no longer comfortable for global south, but the need for adaptation in the first line. In 2021, however, only 13% of urban and 1% of rural households in India owned AC. While efficiency and behavioral measures can reduce the emission trace of existing users without prioritizing access to the most vulnerable, such policies risk that they become symbolic gestures that are ineffective in confrontation of deeper inequality in the heart of climate.
Weather
While the national average of AC ownership in India is approximately 5%, it is predominantly focused between rich urban. For example, in 2021, the richest 10% in India, usually staying in urban areas, 72% of the total ACS. This disparity is also reflected in interstate and regional differences. For example, in Delhi, more than 32% of households owned at least one AC, while the number dropped to 1% for low -income states such as Bihar and Odisha. Despite rising temperatures in these countries, public provision of cooling infrastructure remains seriously limited along with problems related to unreliable power supply, high equipment costs and poor building design.
The intermediate step is even more pronounced and unfair. Developed countries have long enjoyed the almost universal approach to thermal comfort, especially through extended heating, but recently through increased air conditioning. In 2020, nearly 90% of households in the US and Japan owned AC compared to 22% in Central and South America and only 6% in Sub -Saharan Africa. Electricity consumption per head cooling is 7 billion joules in the US, more than 28 times higher than in India, 19 times higher than in Indonesia and 13 times higher than in Brazil. During the European wave wave, which reached a peak of around 42 ° C in cities such as London and Paris, urgent public investments have been carried out in cooling infrastructure, with current AC ownership has doubled since 1990 and international energy agency (IEA). It points to disturbing hypocrisy.
Cooling
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the heat exposure to approximately 489,000 global deaths contributed between 2000 and 2019, and only India has recorded more than 20,000 heat -related deaths during this period. While extreme heat is increasingly recognized as one of the important health threats in the global south, the resulting mortality or morbidity is not just a function of growing temperatures. In fact, it reflects an acute lack of protective infrastructure, such as thermally secured housing, reliable electricity supply and adequately equipped public health systems. In 2022, most healthcare facilities were reliable in countries with high income countries, while almost a billion people in lower and low income countries were operated by unreliable equipment or without power. In South Asia and Sub -Saharan Africa (SSA), they had no electricity and 15% of the health center, while only 50% of SSA hospitals said it has a reliable power supply.
Without the corresponding energy infrastructure, providing basic services such as neonatal care, emergency rooms controlled by climate and cooling of the vaccine become uncertain when relying on stable cooling systems. During the period of extreme heat, the Earth such as Kenya, Ghana and Burkin Faso have seen sharp spikes in cardiovascular, respiratory and kidney conditions that cannot be safely treated in overheated and undervalued facilities. In addition to hospitals, the lack of access to cooling also undermines the safety and productivity of work. The International Labor Organization (ILO) suggests that in 2020 more than 70% of labor was exposed to excessive heat worldwide, causing 23 million injuries at work and claiming almost 19,000 lives. These impacts were felt in disproportionately in poor countries of Africa, South Asia and Arab states, where informal employment dominates and workers usually lack health insurance and access to chilled and ventilated work areas.
In India, almost 80% of the workforce is involved in the sector, such as agriculture, construction and street sales; Tasks that require strenuous outdoor activities. When recognizing this vulnerability, several Indian states and cities have developed action plans that include timely warning systems, information sharing, thermal shelters and campaigns to public awareness. However, their implementation is often limited due to insufficient financing, limited institutional coordination and weak legal foundations. As a result, millions of workers continue to face increased risk of heat -related diseases and loss of income. The solution of these intersecting challenges in the global south requires an urgent need to integrate heat resistance as a basic priority of development through policies that focus on stronger work protection, targeted social security networks and comprehensive thermal actions.
Climatic justice over effectiveness
Developed countries have long been provided by robust heating systems, supported by decades of uncontrolled emissions and generous public subsidies. Today, developing countries are facing similar need for cooling, but under much harder conditions – limited financial resources, paralyzing energy poverty and growing international pressure on decarbonis. In 2022, global carbon emissions cost one billion tonnes per year, still four times lower than heating emissions, which are mostly concentrated in the north. However, it is assumed that by 2050 it is assumed that the global cooling requirement, and India itself is expected to increase in 2020.
In the world limited to carbon, effective and sustainable cooling solutions are instrumental, but the rhetoric of efficacy often ignores the fact that such interventions require significant initial capital, technological approach and institutional support. Since low -income nations are already facing stunning challenges due to economic and energy poverty, without extensive investments in public infrastructure and access to financing from the global north, cooling will remain unavailable for billions in the global south. The closure of this gap is important to prevent deaths that can be prevented, protecting and building public climate -resistant systems. Therefore, cooling must not be considered as a climate responsibility to be assigned, but as an unegeoticitable development law, which is essential for strengthening equity and allowing adaptation.
Published – 26 September 2025 08:30
