China's cool reply to heated air-con debate

Police use water cannon to spray people as they arrive at the Olympic stadium for a concert of US singer Bruno Mars on June 28 in Berlin, Germany, as the temperature reached 39 C. RALF HIRSCHBERGER/AFP

The recent severe heat wave in Europe has subsided, but with another one already on the horizon, the rush to find air conditioners continues.

As late as July 6, searches for "air conditioner" on Amazon and JoyBuy across much of Western Europe still returned the same message: "out of stock".

The heat wave was at its most severe in the June 22-28 week, when daytime highs exceeded 35 C in many major European cities. Milan recorded 37 C on June 26, while Paris climbed above 40 C. Even Brussels and Berlin, located farther north, reached 38 C and 39 C respectively.

Yet in much of Europe, where summers were historically shorter and milder, household air-conditioning ownership remains as low as 20 percent, according to the International Energy Agency.

This summer, however, Chinese suppliers are reporting surging orders from Europe, driven by products that offer affordable prices, low energy consumption and compliance with local regulations.

Europe has barriers holding back air conditioner penetration. Installation fees can exceed 1,000 euros ($1,143), and consumers usually have to wait weeks for installation slots during peak periods. There are also other restraints that need to be considered, such as strict noise regulations, bans on exterior wall modifications for historic buildings, and widespread public concerns that the mass use of air conditioners will push up energy consumption and derail climate action targets.

In response, Midea home appliances said it spent three years developing the PortaSplit, which features an outdoor unit that fixes onto a window bracket with no drilling required. The weight of the outdoor unit has been reduced to less than 10 kilograms, allowing most adult users to install it by themselves. Addressing Europe's high electricity prices, the product also boasts industry-leading energy-saving technologies.

"Made in China is far from simply duplicating products originally developed for the Chinese domestic market and launching them directly overseas. Instead, it means redefining product lines to align with the specific demands of local consumers," said Xiong Xueqin, sales director of Midea RAC Europe Region.

"From this targeted product, what European consumers could see is that Chinese enterprises excel not only in manufacturing, but also in innovation."

Other Chinese home appliance manufacturers have also rolled out innovative cooling products designed for the European market.

In response to Germany's strict nighttime noise control rules, Haier has lowered the minimum operating noise of its air conditioners to 18 decibels, "which is roughly the volume of turning pages in a quiet library," said Yu Shipeng, director of Haier Air Conditioning Overseas Market.

At Ningbo Heallux International Trading Co in Zhejiang province, workers have been busy packing tower fans fitted with intelligent display screens, a product that has become a bestseller in Europe. Hu Benchun, director of the company, told Xinhua that the product was designed for the European market. Between January and May, export of the fan surged roughly 60 percent from last year.

People cool off at a mist fountain at Place du Trocadero during a heat wave in Paris, France, on June 26. DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP

Quest for relief

When the record-breaking heat arrived, demand immediately overwhelmed supply and led to stock shortages across Europe.

But even if a customer is able to buy an air conditioner, he or she finds installation often involves layers of administrative procedures.

In Paris, for example, if an installation alters the appearance of a building — by attaching an outdoor compressor to an exterior wall, drilling through the facade or mounting equipment outside a balcony — homeowners generally must first make a submission to the local authorities before any work can begin. The formal review period alone is typically one month.

Besides, many Parisians live in apartment buildings where exterior walls are considered common property. Any installation affecting those areas often requires approval from the condominium association, whose general assemblies may meet only once a year.

Large parts of Paris consist of historic buildings, many located within protected heritage districts. In such cases, projects may also require authorization from the Architectes des Batiments de France, the body responsible for preserving France's architectural heritage.

"Generally speaking, after spending six months or even a year dealing with all these procedures, the frustration has already outweighed the heat," said Zhang Yuanyuan, a Chinese woman who has lived in Paris for more than seven years without installing an air conditioner in her apartment.

Faced with soaring temperatures, empty shelves, lengthy approval procedures and high installation costs, not everyone chose to wait.

Among them was Denis Yurchak, an Austrian software engineer that founded online-calling website Yadaphone, who documented on X his quest to secure one of the few air conditioners still available in Europe.

He was searching for Midea's PortaSplit. The unit was co-developed by Midea's engineering teams in China and Germany, which proposed the product concept after identifying the "pain point" of local AC users, and conducting testing and iterations since 2024.

The design eliminates the need to drill through walls or permanently alter a building's facade, making it attractive for renters and residents of historic European buildings where installing traditional air conditioners can be legally or practically difficult.

So far, there have been no publicly reported cases of European users being fined or penalized by local authorities for using the product.

On June 23, after seeing weather forecasts predicting an exceptional heat wave in Austria, Yurchak decided it was finally time to buy an air conditioner.

The first model he checked was a Comfee portable air conditioner. Yet the model that sold for about 200 euros the previous year had risen to around 650 euros, so he turned to the PortaSplit and found that every retailer he checked was sold out.

On secondhand marketplaces, units with an original retail price of around 899 euros were being offered at double or even triple that amount, with some listings climbing into several thousand euros.

The shortage became so severe that someone created a website called braucheklima.de — literally "need air conditioner" in German — to monitor inventory updates across major appliance retailers in real time.

"So I set up three AI agents looking for this AC 24/7 and have been monitoring the market myself," Yurchak wrote on X.

He first considered buying the product from Hungary, the only European Union country where it still appeared to be available. The plan ultimately failed because the retailer would deliver only within Hungary, and no forwarding company was willing to transport the unit across the border.

Then, shortly after 2 am on June 25, one of his AI agents detected a single PortaSplit that had just appeared in stock in Linz, Austria, about 200 kilometers from his home.

"I jumped on my phone, rushed through the reservation form, and went to bed happy," he wrote.

The next morning, he grabbed a coffee and set off before dawn. But by the time he arrived at the store, the listed price had increased from 749 euros to 849 euros. It was after he demanded to talk to the manager that they agreed to sell it at the reservation price. "I was happy like a child — this was the only Midea left in the whole country, and it was mine!"

The faithful shelter from the hot sun as Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on June 24. ALESSANDRA TARANTINO/AP

Hot political issue

Hours after finally bringing the unit home, Yurchak reflected on the contrast in approaches to air-conditioning that many Europeans have increasingly begun discussing.

"Before moving to Europe, I lived in Russia, and it was completely normal for people to have ACs there," he said.

"Even though Russia is much poorer than the EU by every metric, and I dare say much colder, people install ACs to live through the two or three weeks of 30 C heat in summer comfortably.

"I never regretted moving to the EU — I like living here and contributing with my tax. But the EU AC madness makes me wanna just wake up in my air-conditioned apartment in Moscow and forget all these damn mobile AC units that barely cool the room."

Across Europe, particularly in France, complaints about the difficulty of buying and installing air conditioners have spread rapidly across social media this summer, and what was once largely a consumer issue has increasingly become a political one.

For years, many environmental advocates argued that wider adoption would increase electricity demand, raise carbon emissions and ultimately worsen climate change.

Yet, with the record heat of 2026, voices in favor of wider air-conditioning access have risen. Among the loudest has been French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has proposed what she describes as her "grand air-conditioning plan" as part of her campaign ahead of France's next presidential election.

Her proposal has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, but relatively few opponents argue against air-conditioning itself.

Among the most outspoken is French left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who argues that installing air conditioning everywhere "would only make things worse", saying it would ultimately increase the damage caused by climate change.

Many others who once firmly opposed wider air-conditioning now argue that it should not be installed everywhere or relied upon as the only solution. The tone of the debate has shifted from whether Europe should use air conditioning to where and how it should be used.

"We are looking at all the social media posts and it feels that we can have a real positive impact on people's lives and many people call PortaSplit a 'lifesaver' and tell about their great experience online," said Manuel Seethaler, head of residential air-conditioning public relations and strategy at Midea Europe GmbH.

"We are always improving the current version either via software upgrades or introducing new window brackets, to allow more applications. For example, PortaSplit started sales in the United Kingdom this year, and of course it was sold out in a short time," he said.

Xiong, from the Midea Group, said the company has sold over 200,000 units in Europe this year. The top three sales countries are Germany, France and the UK.

"We have many containers at the seaports or that are about to arrive at the ports, which will be cleared through customs soon and delivered to the sales channels, so customers can receive the products shortly," said Xiong.

"Meanwhile, the factories are producing them as quickly as possible. We are also shipping some containers via China-Europe Railway Express, which can reach end-users more quickly compared with sea freight."

Asked whether she lived in an air-conditioned home, Sasha, a young woman in Brussels, smiled and said she had suffered through several summers without one.

Her classmate Karli said her family had bought an electric fan much earlier this year because experience had taught them, "Every year, if there is a heat wave, fans sell out."

Zheng Wanyin contributed to this story.