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Discussion (95 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
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.
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.
We are affected by the weather much more than we'd like to admit.
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
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.
I know not AC are/were heat pumps but I don't know of any that are not anymore
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.
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.
I live at 51°N and apartments in my building that face the south largely have AC. I've seen a lot of AC company vans in my neighborhood lately, so I guess many people pulled that trigger this year.
Personally I went to the mountains as it's a 2h drive and naturally cool, moist air beats AC every time.
The people who refuse to install it and make up the majority of deaths are simply old - older than the average life expectancy in the US - and thus typically pinching pennies - especially that for the vast majority of their lives it wasn't necessary.
My father had AC installed a several years ago due to his health and it was probably working overtime this season.
My mother lives in a commie block that is well insulated and surrounded by green spaces, so the heatwave didn't affect her nearly as much.
My college friend discovered his heat pump is actually reversible, so now instead of heated, they have cooled floors. Unfortunately the device wasn't smart enough to on one hand use the heat to heat up tap water and the cold to cool the surroundings, but I guess you can't have everything.
That makes additional cooling load almost a non-issue, and can help incentivise the transition from diesel boilers -> heat pumps, as well as driving the grid upgrades we sorely need to make use of all the solar capacity.
It's also a misdirection of guilt. It's not the accumulated CO2 from the decades of burning all kinds of shit that is driving the weather, it's your personal AC unit.
AC does make the problem worse, the issue is just that climate change is mostly out of Europe's control.
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)
i guess you meant the reverse?
Sweating in >30°C high-CO2 spaces doesn't improve student's learning.
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.)
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.
A dry bulb temperature of 30C contains little information regarding safety. Humans are wet and we cool ourselves with evaporation.
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 :)
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.
And the ones that don't have it, oh well, too bad :)
For outdoor work, protection from extreme heat generally implies shade, hydration, frequent breaks, et cetera.
Most remotely modern interior spaces in Florida are going to be air conditioned so this is already not a problem in Florida.
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.
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.
Natural adaptation.
Days could be brutally hot ( easily over 100 F ), but there was little humidity. My transportation was a motorcycle ( with additional heat radiating off the engine ), so mid often feel a little uncomfortable, but it was definitely livable.
Interestingly, homeowners often used evaporative ‘swamp coolers’ instead of AC. A big benefit of low humidity.
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...
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
Not because AC itself is particularly expensive, but because almost no rental apartment has it because installing AC during the construction is basically forbidden due to green laws (RT 2012) so you need to own.
And owning something decent not in the damn city itself is expensive as fuck these days.
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!])