Air conditioning boom threatens Kyoto protocol
The units may keep people cool, but they also churn out carbon dioxide which could wreck European attempts to meet emissions targetsSales of air-conditioning units boomed during the July heatwave that saw many areas of northern Europe enduring record-breaking temperatures. Such units keep people cool, but the carbon dioxide they churn out could wreck attempts to meet Kyoto protocol targets, says a report by the London-based Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE).The UK government is hoping that energy-efficient housing will cut the country's CO₂ emissions in 2020 by 5.5 million tonnes. The scheme is one of the central planks in the country's strategy for meeting Kyoto protocol targets, and is particularly important because residential energy use has been growing at 1 per cent a year - about three times the rate of the commercial sector. But the ACE report, released this week, predicts that by 2020 emissions of CO₂ from domestic air conditioners could hit 4.9 million tonnes per year.

The study assumes that as global warming sends temperatures ...