From Paris to Athens, and Lisbon to Berlin, Europeans are enduring a prolonged and punishing summer heatwave amid global warming.
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And rising right alongside the blazing temperatures are China’s exports of air conditioners (ACs) to the continent, with a nearly 60 per cent jump by volume in July, compared with the same time last year, according to Chinese customs data.
The Spanish capital of Madrid kicked off the week under a yellow alert – the third-highest heat warning on a four-tier scale – with temperatures reaching almost 36 degrees Celsius (96.8 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Spain’s State Meteorological Agency.
A severe heatwave also continued to grip France last weekend, when 85 of the 96 metropolitan departments – roughly equivalent to Chinese prefecture-level cities or US counties – were under heatwave alerts, including Paris. The French capital experienced its first heatwave of the summer in June, with temperatures hitting 36 degrees – exceeding the typical average high for the month of 24 degrees.
For a continent that is mostly situated at a latitude similar to China’s northeast – with Paris being a little bit north of Heilongjiang province’s Harbin, and Madrid being slightly south of Liaoning province’s Shenyang – the heatwaves have laid bare Europe’s unpreparedness for extreme temperatures while sending demand for ACs surging.
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And that means business is similarly heating up for Chinese brands that dominate the global AC market – producing about 80 per cent of the world’s cooling units, according to the AC branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products.
