Heat is becoming a class issue. The left needs to start talking about air conditioning

They are estimated to have contributed to more than 3,000 excess deaths.

Across the country, extreme temperatures are placing growing pressure on the NHS, disrupting schools, making homes unbearable and putting vulnerable people at risk. For many, particularly infants, older people, disabled people and those with pre-existing health conditions, extreme heat is hugely dangerous.

Parts of the environmental movement have historically been cautious about air conditioning. The concern was that poorly insulated buildings cooled by inefficient, energy-hungry systems would simply increase emissions and make climate change worse. The priority was rightly placed on better building design, insulation, ventilation, shading and greener urban spaces.

But what was once a sensible environmental argument has rapidly become an argument that is outdated, harmful, and betrays the vulnerable people we seek to protect.

The left cannot afford to let access to cooling become another culture-war battleground, framed as a choice between caring about climate change and keeping people safe. Britain is getting hotter, and millions of people live in homes never designed for the temperatures we now routinely experience.

The uncomfortable reality is that extreme heat kills. It kills older people. It kills those with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. It kills people whose housing traps heat for days with nowhere for it to go. It places huge strain on our public services and health system. And, as with almost every climate impact, it hits the poorest hardest.

Which is why access to effective cooling should be viewed not as a luxury issue, but as a social justice issue.

The people most vulnerable to extreme heat are often those least able to protect themselves from it. If you're wealthy enough, adaptation is relatively straightforward. You can move somewhere cooler. Retrofit your home. Buy whatever technology is needed to keep temperatures at a safe level.

If you're living in a rented flat, a social housing block, a converted period property or accommodation where you have little control over the building itself, your options are much more limited.

Yet in the UK, air conditioning was long associated with excessive energy consumption, poor building design and a particularly American vision of climate adaptation. Only around 3% of UK homes have air conditioning, compared to more than 90% in countries like America and Japan.

But when it's 37 degrees outside and 30 degrees inside three days into a heatwave, the debate needs to shift. Nobody should be expected to endure dangerous temperatures because policymakers feel uncomfortable discussing mechanical cooling.

Of course, other passive cooling measures are important too. Better-designed buildings, shading, urban greening and improved ventilation can dramatically reduce overheating. These passive cooling measures have other benefits – greener and healthier areas, more attractive building designs, and a low-cost alternative to air con for some parts of the year. We absolutely do not want developers using air conditioning as an excuse to avoid designing buildings properly in the first place.

But passive cooling has limits. Last week, a temperature of 38.1 degrees was recorded in West London. The NHS recommends a room temperature between 16 and 20 degrees for babies, as overheating can increase the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Passive cooling cannot maintain healthy temperatures for infants, nor for other vulnerable groups, when faced with this kind of extreme heat. Mechanical cooling – air con and air-to-air heat pumps – must be seen as a solution.

If you live in a listed building or conservation area, installing mechanical cooling can be extraordinarily difficult. Rules designed to preserve historic character often make adapting homes for modern conditions unnecessarily complicated.

We do not ask residents to live with nineteenth-century sanitation. We do not insist they reject modern heating systems because previous generations managed without them. Yet when it comes to cooling, we still often ask people to inhabit buildings as though the climate outside has not fundamentally changed. Air conditioning is not only important for people’s health and productivity, but also for making homes comfortable and life enjoyable. Anyone who has suffered through one of these numerous hot summer nights with no respite to be found would surely agree.

Respecting heritage is important, but preserving human health and happiness is more important.

The good news is that politics is beginning to catch up. The government's decision to make air-to-air heat pumps eligible for support through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme marked an important step forward. These systems can provide low-carbon heating in winter and cooling in summer, helping households adapt while also reducing emissions.

That matters because the answer to hotter summers is not a vast expansion of inefficient fossil-fuel-powered cooling. It is efficient, electrified systems powered increasingly by clean energy. The progressive answer to extreme heat is not to choose between reducing emissions and protecting people from climate impacts. It is to do both. This is why the government’s clean power agenda matters, and matters now. Decarbonising and retrofitting homes, whether with heat pumps or air conditioning units, means accessing the benefits of cheap renewable energy to deliver comfortable, liveable homes for all.

For too long, climate policy has been framed almost exclusively around preventing future harm. That remains essential. But adaptation matters too. The climate is already changing. Extreme summer heat is here to stay. Heat-related illness and deaths are already occurring. We cannot decarbonise our way out of impacts that have already arrived.

The left rightly speaks about housing justice, health justice and economic justice. It is time we recognised that, in a country facing increasingly dangerous heatwaves, climate justice belongs on that list too.

In the coming decades, the ability to keep your home cool may prove just as important as the ability to keep it warm. And if access to warmth is a social good, access to cooling should be too.

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Megan Corton Scott is Deputy Director of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum.

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