China's adaptive response to climate change through air-conditioning

Hongbo Duan; Xi Ming; Xiao-Bing Zhang; Thomas Sterner; Shouyang Wang

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106178

China's adaptive response to climate change through air-conditioning

iScience. 2023 Feb 10;26(3):106178. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106178. eCollection 2023 Mar 17.

Authors

Hongbo Duan¹, Xi Ming¹, Xiao-Bing Zhang², Thomas Sterner³, Shouyang Wang^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
² Department of Technology, Management and Economics, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Copenhagen, Denmark.
³ Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, 40530 Gothenburg, Sweden.
⁴ School of Entrepreneurship and Management, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai 201210, China.

Abstract

Studies have shown that the soaring demand for air conditioners in recent years is closely related to the worsening global warming; however, little evidence has been provided for China. This study uses weekly data of 343 Chinese cities to investigate how air conditioner sales respond to climate variability. We detected a U-shaped relationship between air-conditioning and temperature. An additional day with average temperature above 30°C increases weekly sales by 16.2%. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the adoption of air-conditioning is different for south and north China. By combining our estimates with shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios, we project China's mid-century air conditioner sales and the resulting electricity demand. Under the fossil-fueled development scenario, air conditioner sales in the Pearl River Delta would rise by 71% (65.7%-87.6%) in summer. On average, the per capita electricity demand for air-conditioning will surge by 28% (23.2%-35.4%) in China by mid-century.

Keywords: Environmental policy; Global change; Urban planning.