2019/01/22 by Alessio Mastrucci, Edward Byers, Shonali Pachauri +1 · 176 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Medicine · #Air Quality and Health Impacts #Biology #Business #Climate Change and Health Impacts #Climate change #Ecology #Economic growth #Economics #Electricity #Energy and Environment Impacts #Energy consumption #Energy poverty #Engineering #Environmental economics #Environmental science #Global warming #Heating degree day #Medicine #Natural resource economics #Poverty
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.01.015
published in Energy and Buildings 186, 405-415 (Elsevier BV)
openalex publication_date 2019/01/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
With growing health risks from rising temperatures in the Global South, the lack of essential indoor cooling is increasingly seen as a dimension of energy poverty and human well-being. Air conditioning (AC) is expected to increase significantly with rising incomes, but it is likely that many who need AC will not have it. We estimate the current location and extent of populations potentially exposed to heat stress in the Global South. We apply a variable degree days (VDD) method on a global grid to estimate the energy demand required to meet these cooling needs, accounting for spatially explicit climate, housing types, access to electricity and AC ownership. Our results show large gaps in access to essential space cooling, especially in India, South-East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Between 1.8 to 4.1 billion, depending on the required indoor temperatures and days of exposure, may need AC to avoid heat related stresses under current climate and socio-economic conditions. This number far exceeds the energy poverty gap indicated by the Sustainable Development Goal for electricity access (SDG7). Covering this cooling gap would entail a median energy demand growth of 14% of current global residential electricity consumption, primarily for AC. Solutions beyond improved AC efficiency, such as passive building and city design, innovative cooling technologies, and parsimonious use of AC will be needed to ensure essential cooling for all with minimized environmental damage. Meeting the essential cooling gap, as estimated by this study, can have important interactions with achieving several of the SDGs.