I think this whole heat wave crisis has been shocking to the rest of the world to see that apparently Europeans refuse to install AC even in new-build homes and it is causing enormous numbers of deaths. What is the reason for this? Is it just because it's expensive and energy costs are so high?
It seems like a basic safety requirement that they are refusing to acknowledge and are now apparently just refusing to go to work completely when it gets hot outside.
The south already mostly had AC. The north was too busy criticizing the south for things like closing shops in the afternoon, using blinds, eating late, and of course using AC. Now I guess they're beginning to realize that maybe it's not that the south is "lazy" but just adaptation.
Toning down the snark, to be honest, most places in countries like France and Germany didn't have AC because up to a few years ago, maybe they'd seriously need it one week per year or so... it didn't make sense for them to have it just to keep it turned off 99% of the time. I'm sure they will adapt, but it always takes some time to change the old ways.
Which bit of Europe are you talking about? Italy and Spain have AC everywhere.
Further north it hasn't been necessary until very recently, and now people are fighting in shops to buy portable units and there are going to be loads of permanent installations once things settle down later this year.
Southern Spain may, but it's virtually unheard of up here in Galicia/Asturias/Cantabria. Even many businesses in these parts don't have AC, and our Ourense region has pretty regularly had 40+ C days the last ~5 summers
The reason is simple to understand. For the majority of the time the AC would sit idle. Some years AC is not required at all because the summer is mild. It's hard to get people to spend money on things that they don't need most of the time, it's like buying insurance.
Ok but you can use AC in the winter as well, you've an use it only to dry the air in your apartment. So this is not a real argument to me once you know what it can do and how it does it, there is no reason not to have one. Outside it is 25°C but I still run my AC at 22°C and it is super efficient as this is the case where AC excels at efficiency when the diff is small. It is a heat pump, sometimes I would run it when outside is colder and inside is veru warm as it moves heat faster than opening the window and waiting.
I know not AC are/were heat pumps but I don't know of any that are not anymore
Even in new build homes? IIUC, many people in Europe were taking advantage of the incentives to install heat pumps as a back door mechanism to install A/C. After all a heat pump is essentially just A/C with a reverser switch.
But that only works in homes with forced air heating. Most of Europe doesn't use forced air heating. You can replace a boiler with a heat pump, but if you do you don't magically get A/C too.
In 2026 it seems silly to do new builds in a cold climate with anything but a forced air heat pump.
We have underfloor heating/cooling; the only mould we see anywhere now is a small amount on the skylight, and previously some in the bathroom that was due to a leaking roof the builders have since made good.
Condensation needs humidity, not just a lower temperature. In summer, this is rare, even though we're in Berlin which is essentially built in the middle of a huge area of low-lying marshy woodlands.
Their walls are autoclaved aerated concrete, which is pretty good at both insulating (so less cooling needed) and absorbing/diffusing humidity, so I think in their case it's fine.
Things are already much better than they used to be. The 2003 heatwave killed ~70k. This year's heatwave was worse, but the number of deaths probably didn't go much beyond 20k.
It's mostly about the perception that AC is a band-aid that doesn't just stall fixing the root cause of climate change caused by excessive energy consumption, but actively makes it worse.
>The union said employers should take steps to cool down workplaces once temperatures exceed 24C, with workers able to stop working if temperatures reach 30C, or 27C for those doing manual labour or working outdoors.
Geneva already has a version of this. You have to stop outside work at 13h00 unless it's necessary, in which case you have to take 45min breaks for every 15 minutes of work. However the threshold isn't 27C but rather like 32C (from what I understand)
OP's submission seems very UK / TUC centric, also doesn't include something many here are bringing up, that they indeed plan to base it on the wet bulb temperature.
That's an interesting way to investigate how much public policy surrounding schools is actually focused on student education. I think you'd find that there would be significant fear around crime in an environment that already has a heightened risk of riots. For younger students the debate would shift to burden of additional childcare.
Not sure about the rioting part, maybe in some places on earth, but I'd say the burden of additional childcare is obviously an issue. So is just missing those hours of education.
Which is why perhaps classes should not be suspended in most and less extreme cases, but rather adjusted. And good teachers are already doing that. (And long-term, AC has to be a thing.)
First, weather services would need to report it. None of the ones I've seen do. Most don't even report feels-like temperature, they just report plain temperature... in my city (often windy and humid) it's all but useless, you can need a jacket with 21ºC one day and be comfortable without it with 16ºC the next.
It's specifically for "jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction", not sure better buildings will help the workers out on fields and construction sites much.
Although one temperature threshold probably don't make much sense, a strict 30C across the entire continent would mean massively different things in different countries, in many countries that mean basically the entire summer off, every year.
> Under the proposals, employers within the European Union would be legally required to suspend work if temperatures exceeded 30C
That's... uh... the entire summer in most of southern Europe?
I agree with the general intention, but the thresholds probably need to take into account humidity as well (i.e. be based on wet bulb temperatures), and I don't really see how one can apply a one-size-fits-all policy all the way from Greece to Scandinavia...
southern europeans have had to deal with the northern cultural view that we're lazy, and modern work culture imported from those countries has virtually ended siesta. well, now it's hot over there too. we can be nice and tell them "see?" or we can be mean and have them live with the consequences of their moral positions. Right now I'm leaning a bit to the later, but it might just be the heat getting to me :P
Anything above 86 F? That's the whole summer. I see this as a negotiating position. They'll probably agree on something closer to 33 C (~90F). They have to. If they do nothing people will literally die. Climate change has consequences.
It's already somewhat implemented in Florida. OSHA requires employers to protect employees from extreme heat. It doesn't explicitly require air conditioning, but air conditioning is standard practice in Florida so not providing it would open up employers to an OSHA complaint.
For outdoor work, protection from extreme heat generally implies shade, hydration, frequent breaks, et cetera.
> This is about temperature in the workplace, not outside temperatures
According to the article, the 30C threshold is for "more demanding jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction", which generally take place outdoors
Cos today in my pokey town, my house is 30°C, my local library 28°C the gym is at least 25°C and the outside 31°C at a dew point of 15°C. Its not Florida but its the UK and there’s no relief.
From the article, it's for "jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction". Would be interesting to learn about how this kind of work is managed in hotter climates.
For office work, a lot of European countries (especially the UK) haven't invested in AC as much as the rest of the world because they haven't needed to. This is especially apparent in housing, where working from home is becoming difficult in these higher temperatures.
Vapor compression refrigeration has been mass produced for a century. Add a reversing valve and you have a heat pump. Europe better get started on installs, it’s not going to cool down.
China ramps up production & shipping to Europe [1] and a quick glance at Google Trends for Germany, UK and France AC install searches are up 5x from last year, and last year was already double or more of the previous years.
I have a warmtepomp it's great, but it is cooling the house, not the air a only gets it to 5 day degrees down. It's mandatory for new houses in Amsterdam I think and there seem to plans to retrofit old buildings. It helps that we also produce it, but the usual types tried to sabotage that too last time.
I have a heat pump based water heater installed in the garage. One side benefit is the garage got cooled down. It used to be that the garage got very hot during hot days. Now it’s cool.
Except for a large part of Europe, the relative humidity is quite high. So, they're suffering more than most. I say this as someone who once lived in a desert and is well accustomed to 40-50 C summers.
Oh, noes! Europoors become even less competitive! If only they had not outlawed airco, they would be rich, rich I say!
But, ehhhhhm, yeah... What would you expect unions to do? Push their workers just a bit harder so they get through summer-no-matter-what? Free ice, and not just in their drinks, for everyone all around? Or just recognize that siesta was invented for, like, a reason and go with the deeply-historical flow?
Personally, I think "if you cannot provide a working environment where the ambient temperature is well below 30C (86 in Freedom Units), maybe the work should be postponed, at no cost to the worker" is not an unreasonable collective-bargaining position, but let the downvoting commence...
(P.S. Funny anecdote: in communist China [hiss, boo!] in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, there was an official directive for working conditions in hot environments, which set thermal time limits, and completely outlawed work [hiss, boo!] when temperatures were above 32C [around 90 in Freedom Units] for the day. The officially published temperature in the newspaper was, without fail, 31C, even if Beijing was cooking, though the largest pollutants would be shut down, especially when the IOC was visiting... [Fox News would be proud!])
Given that the article specifically calls out a construction union and an agricultural union as two of the unions making this request, I don't think that's a realistic solution to the problem.
I think this whole heat wave crisis has been shocking to the rest of the world to see that apparently Europeans refuse to install AC even in new-build homes and it is causing enormous numbers of deaths. What is the reason for this? Is it just because it's expensive and energy costs are so high?
It seems like a basic safety requirement that they are refusing to acknowledge and are now apparently just refusing to go to work completely when it gets hot outside.
The south already mostly had AC. The north was too busy criticizing the south for things like closing shops in the afternoon, using blinds, eating late, and of course using AC. Now I guess they're beginning to realize that maybe it's not that the south is "lazy" but just adaptation.
Toning down the snark, to be honest, most places in countries like France and Germany didn't have AC because up to a few years ago, maybe they'd seriously need it one week per year or so... it didn't make sense for them to have it just to keep it turned off 99% of the time. I'm sure they will adapt, but it always takes some time to change the old ways.
When the temperature in Berlin is higher than 30degC, it becomes the south. People start to shout, honk, argue in the streets, stay up late.
We are affected by the weather much more than we'd like to admit.
Which bit of Europe are you talking about? Italy and Spain have AC everywhere.
Further north it hasn't been necessary until very recently, and now people are fighting in shops to buy portable units and there are going to be loads of permanent installations once things settle down later this year.
> Italy and Spain have AC everywhere
Southern Spain may, but it's virtually unheard of up here in Galicia/Asturias/Cantabria. Even many businesses in these parts don't have AC, and our Ourense region has pretty regularly had 40+ C days the last ~5 summers
It's nothing new. In 2003 there was a huge heatwave and thousands of people died:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heatwave
The reason is simple to understand. For the majority of the time the AC would sit idle. Some years AC is not required at all because the summer is mild. It's hard to get people to spend money on things that they don't need most of the time, it's like buying insurance.
Ok but you can use AC in the winter as well, you've an use it only to dry the air in your apartment. So this is not a real argument to me once you know what it can do and how it does it, there is no reason not to have one. Outside it is 25°C but I still run my AC at 22°C and it is super efficient as this is the case where AC excels at efficiency when the diff is small. It is a heat pump, sometimes I would run it when outside is colder and inside is veru warm as it moves heat faster than opening the window and waiting.
I know not AC are/were heat pumps but I don't know of any that are not anymore
You can still buy a cooling-only unit no problem. Slightly cheaper than a heat pump.
or (to put it in an IT context) backup and DR services/hardware.
There were 2-3 days a year above 30C in London from 1995 to 2015. Since then it's been about 6 days a year, and this year has already broken that
Even in new build homes? IIUC, many people in Europe were taking advantage of the incentives to install heat pumps as a back door mechanism to install A/C. After all a heat pump is essentially just A/C with a reverser switch.
But that only works in homes with forced air heating. Most of Europe doesn't use forced air heating. You can replace a boiler with a heat pump, but if you do you don't magically get A/C too.
In 2026 it seems silly to do new builds in a cold climate with anything but a forced air heat pump.
It also works in homes with wall heating. My parents now have wall cooling, which is much nicer than any forced air AC.
>wall cooling
That sounds like a big mold risk if its causing condensation in the walls. Wall heating, on the other hand sounds like a great idea.
We have underfloor heating/cooling; the only mould we see anywhere now is a small amount on the skylight, and previously some in the bathroom that was due to a leaking roof the builders have since made good.
Condensation needs humidity, not just a lower temperature. In summer, this is rare, even though we're in Berlin which is essentially built in the middle of a huge area of low-lying marshy woodlands.
Their walls are autoclaved aerated concrete, which is pretty good at both insulating (so less cooling needed) and absorbing/diffusing humidity, so I think in their case it's fine.
It's a pretty cool material!
Things are already much better than they used to be. The 2003 heatwave killed ~70k. This year's heatwave was worse, but the number of deaths probably didn't go much beyond 20k.
We also recently had COVID to cull the herd. I imagine many people are missing from the stats because of it.
How would installing AC help if your job is outside? It would actually make it worse!
It's mostly about the perception that AC is a band-aid that doesn't just stall fixing the root cause of climate change caused by excessive energy consumption, but actively makes it worse.
Why is this "a perception"? It's true isn't it? I'm going to get AC but the situation is quite worrying.
We'll just sweat it out and complain. It's more fun!
Collective cultural delusion? Koreans think leaving a fan on while you're sleeping is deadly... people are weird.
>The union said employers should take steps to cool down workplaces once temperatures exceed 24C, with workers able to stop working if temperatures reach 30C, or 27C for those doing manual labour or working outdoors.
Geneva already has a version of this. You have to stop outside work at 13h00 unless it's necessary, in which case you have to take 45min breaks for every 15 minutes of work. However the threshold isn't 27C but rather like 32C (from what I understand)
(Slightly) better article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/08/unions-e...
OP's submission seems very UK / TUC centric, also doesn't include something many here are bringing up, that they indeed plan to base it on the wet bulb temperature.
While they're at it, include schools too. Many school buildings have inadequate ventilation or climate control.
Sweating in >30°C high-CO2 spaces doesn't improve student's learning.
That's an interesting way to investigate how much public policy surrounding schools is actually focused on student education. I think you'd find that there would be significant fear around crime in an environment that already has a heightened risk of riots. For younger students the debate would shift to burden of additional childcare.
Not sure about the rioting part, maybe in some places on earth, but I'd say the burden of additional childcare is obviously an issue. So is just missing those hours of education.
Which is why perhaps classes should not be suspended in most and less extreme cases, but rather adjusted. And good teachers are already doing that. (And long-term, AC has to be a thing.)
That's been a thing for a long time. "Hitzefrei".
In Germany that's already a thing afaik
I wish that society can learn about and apply the concept of a wet bulb temperature.
A dry bulb temperature of 30C contains little information regarding safety. Humans are wet and we cool ourselves with evaporation.
> Unions want enforceable workplace thermal limits, based on the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/08/unions-e...
The submission just doesn't include it, but that seems to be the goal to apply that concept :)
First, weather services would need to report it. None of the ones I've seen do. Most don't even report feels-like temperature, they just report plain temperature... in my city (often windy and humid) it's all but useless, you can need a jacket with 21ºC one day and be comfortable without it with 16ºC the next.
US Military developed the wet bulb index in the 1950s for this purpose and it’s still used today.
99.9% of all mass in the solar system is the Sun, a giant nuclear reactor. No one should ever accept energy conservation.
That's not going to work in the South. Demand adapted buildings, housing, and AC where applicable.
It's specifically for "jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction", not sure better buildings will help the workers out on fields and construction sites much.
Although one temperature threshold probably don't make much sense, a strict 30C across the entire continent would mean massively different things in different countries, in many countries that mean basically the entire summer off, every year.
It matters when the heat stress continues when you're not at work. You can tolerate a lot more if your body gets actual breaks from the heat.
It's not clear from the article, but I think it's obvious they are referring to jobs that require being outdoors
Most places in the south already have AC
And the ones that don't have it, oh well, too bad :)
Read the article. This applies to outdoor jobs only.
Yes, outdoor work should already have had this!
The south of what?
> Under the proposals, employers within the European Union would be legally required to suspend work if temperatures exceeded 30C
That's... uh... the entire summer in most of southern Europe?
I agree with the general intention, but the thresholds probably need to take into account humidity as well (i.e. be based on wet bulb temperatures), and I don't really see how one can apply a one-size-fits-all policy all the way from Greece to Scandinavia...
southern europeans have had to deal with the northern cultural view that we're lazy, and modern work culture imported from those countries has virtually ended siesta. well, now it's hot over there too. we can be nice and tell them "see?" or we can be mean and have them live with the consequences of their moral positions. Right now I'm leaning a bit to the later, but it might just be the heat getting to me :P
_laughs in maltese_
Turns out in the 21st century the technology that will boost worker productivity in Europe will not be AI, it will be AC.
Anything above 86 F? That's the whole summer. I see this as a negotiating position. They'll probably agree on something closer to 33 C (~90F). They have to. If they do nothing people will literally die. Climate change has consequences.
With or without AC?
We should implement this in Florida. I wouldn't mind a five month vacation.
It's already somewhat implemented in Florida. OSHA requires employers to protect employees from extreme heat. It doesn't explicitly require air conditioning, but air conditioning is standard practice in Florida so not providing it would open up employers to an OSHA complaint.
For outdoor work, protection from extreme heat generally implies shade, hydration, frequent breaks, et cetera.
Your workplace in Florida has an interior temperature of 86F? This is about temperature in the workplace, not outside temperatures.
Most remotely modern interior spaces in Florida are going to be air conditioned so this is already not a problem in Florida.
> This is about temperature in the workplace, not outside temperatures
According to the article, the 30C threshold is for "more demanding jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction", which generally take place outdoors
Do you have to live & work in un-ac'd buildings?
Cos today in my pokey town, my house is 30°C, my local library 28°C the gym is at least 25°C and the outside 31°C at a dew point of 15°C. Its not Florida but its the UK and there’s no relief.
From the article, it's for "jobs in sectors like agriculture and construction". Would be interesting to learn about how this kind of work is managed in hotter climates.
For office work, a lot of European countries (especially the UK) haven't invested in AC as much as the rest of the world because they haven't needed to. This is especially apparent in housing, where working from home is becoming difficult in these higher temperatures.
I play games with a guy who does concrete work in Arizona, he mostly works at night.
I lived in the southern US for a long time. Any office I ever worked in would send everyone home if the AC was broken in the summer.
I was about to make the same comment about Minnesota, but I'd only get a three month vacation.
Vapor compression refrigeration has been mass produced for a century. Add a reversing valve and you have a heat pump. Europe better get started on installs, it’s not going to cool down.
What makes you think that this isn't happening?
China ramps up production & shipping to Europe [1] and a quick glance at Google Trends for Germany, UK and France AC install searches are up 5x from last year, and last year was already double or more of the previous years.
1: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202607/1364856.shtml
I have a warmtepomp it's great, but it is cooling the house, not the air a only gets it to 5 day degrees down. It's mandatory for new houses in Amsterdam I think and there seem to plans to retrofit old buildings. It helps that we also produce it, but the usual types tried to sabotage that too last time.
As a native English speaker, I love how some Dutch terms are clearly understandable to me without knowing Dutch, “warmtepomp” is a wonderful word :)
I have a heat pump based water heater installed in the garage. One side benefit is the garage got cooled down. It used to be that the garage got very hot during hot days. Now it’s cool.
30C isn't that bad if the humidity is low and you are in shade.
Heatwave from a few weeks ago had 70% humidity where I live. It's brutal with no AC to dehumidify.
Except for a large part of Europe, the relative humidity is quite high. So, they're suffering more than most. I say this as someone who once lived in a desert and is well accustomed to 40-50 C summers.
Oh, noes! Europoors become even less competitive! If only they had not outlawed airco, they would be rich, rich I say!
But, ehhhhhm, yeah... What would you expect unions to do? Push their workers just a bit harder so they get through summer-no-matter-what? Free ice, and not just in their drinks, for everyone all around? Or just recognize that siesta was invented for, like, a reason and go with the deeply-historical flow?
Personally, I think "if you cannot provide a working environment where the ambient temperature is well below 30C (86 in Freedom Units), maybe the work should be postponed, at no cost to the worker" is not an unreasonable collective-bargaining position, but let the downvoting commence...
(P.S. Funny anecdote: in communist China [hiss, boo!] in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, there was an official directive for working conditions in hot environments, which set thermal time limits, and completely outlawed work [hiss, boo!] when temperatures were above 32C [around 90 in Freedom Units] for the day. The officially published temperature in the newspaper was, without fail, 31C, even if Beijing was cooking, though the largest pollutants would be shut down, especially when the IOC was visiting... [Fox News would be proud!])
The downvoting would be because of your claims that europeans have outlawed air conditioning
No, I'm pretty sure that's not it... (and I say that knowing that sarcasm is both dead and pretty hard to detect online, at the same time, no less)
Seems cheaper to install AC.
Given that the article specifically calls out a construction union and an agricultural union as two of the unions making this request, I don't think that's a realistic solution to the problem.
Probably a good argument for the agreement; puts teeth behind worker safety/comfort.
In the farm?
Tractors come with AC
I expect some people here think we don’t have tractors in Europe.
I find this funny. Temps are always above 30C here during summer.