LettersAs heatwaves soar, a trade war with China will only leave Europe sweating

Readers discuss Europe’s air conditioning crisis, setting clear priorities for Hong Kong’s first five-year plan, and the prison service’s bungled anti-drug message

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People cool off in a fountain at Madrid Rio park during a heatwave in Madrid, Spain, on July 8. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:30am, 10 Jul 2026

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Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew famously credited air conditioning as the technology that helped turn a sweltering tropical city state into a success story of growth.

In today’s Europe, that same invention is becoming a political battleground. As the continent bakes under unprecedented heatwaves, some extreme climate activists and populist politicians are debating whether using air conditioning to address heat is environmentally defensible or politically correct.

The stakes are high. World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said more than 1,300 excess deaths in just one week in June were linked to high temperatures in Europe. Europe is warming fast, yet its homes, schools and workplaces, which were never built for extreme heat, remain unequipped for this crisis.

While activists and politicians bicker, ordinary European consumers are voting with their wallets – and they are buying Chinese.

Since June, Chinese-made portable split air conditioners, especially those engineered to bypass the strict building codes and high installation costs in Europe, have become the must-have survival kit from Paris to Vienna. Social media posts recount instances of shoppers driving 200km and building real-time inventory websites just to secure a unit.