AFP
MIAMI
The use of air conditioning may rise dramatically by the end of the century, requiring far more electricity and sending pollutants into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates, researchers warned Monday. Refrigerators and air conditioners release hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which can be thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and leading to global warming. Just a slight increase in income leads many people to purchase air conditioners to improve their quality of life in the sweltering tropics and subtropics, where some three billion people live, according to the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal. Using data from 25 million electricity customers in Mexico to create a model of what may lie ahead for the rest of the world, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley showed that a two percent annual increase in household income, combined with forecasts about climbing temperatures due to climate change, could lead to near-universal use of air conditioners.