Every summer, elderly Europeans die in apartments that feel like ovens. A peer-reviewed study in Nature Medicine estimated that more than 60,000 Europeans died from heat-related causes in the summer of 2022 alone. And this summer may be worse. 

About 90% of American homes have air conditioning. In Europe, the figure is roughly 20%. That gap didn’t arise from government policy alone, but European officials have spent decades making it more difficult to close.