Mexico. In a new study published by PNAS, two researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, examined the relationship between climate, revenue growth, and air conditioning adoption. In particular, data from 27,000 households in Mexico, a country with varied climates, were analyzed.
Under conservative assumptions about income growth, their model predicts a close universal saturation of air conditioning in all hot spots within a few decades, versus a property rate of 13% today. Temperature increases contribute to this increase in adoption, however income growth alone explains most of the increase.
They also examined the enormous global potential for air conditioning and listed the top twelve countries in terms of air conditioning potential, which is defined as the product of population and Cooling Day Degrees (CDDs): India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, the Philippines, the United States, Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico.
Excluding the US, the list is dominated by low- and middle-income countries with warm climates. A total of nearly 4 billion people live in these eleven countries, subject to an average of 2,700 CDDs annually.
In his opinion, the case of India, with four times the population of the US, and also more than three times more CDD per person. Thus, India's total potential demand for refrigeration is twelve times that of the US. India is already experiencing voltage drops and frequent blackouts, which will be compounded by increased air conditioning if infrastructure doesn't keep up with demand.
According to the authors, what air conditioning will mean for electricity consumption and carbon dioxide emissions depends on the pace of technological change. Continued advances in energy efficiency or the development of new cooling technologies could reduce the impact of energy consumption considerably.
