France’s Greens Propose Paid Days Off Instead of Air Conditioning To Respond to Heat Waves

Environmentalists in France — long against adopting air conditioning — think a better idea to deal with extreme heat is forcing companies to provide “climate-related” paid time off for employees.France recorded its hottest day on record Tuesday and much of the population is suffering without cooling. People across the country have been buying portable air-conditioners but only about 25 percent of French households have cooling units and they are not widely used in public spaces.The Ecologists party is now proposing “climate leave” — paid time off during extreme weather events such as heatwaves — as a solution when it could be dangerous to commute or work in hot spaces.The populist right calls that plan ridiculous and says there needs to be a commitment to adopting air conditioning across the nation. National Rally politician Marine Le Pen is calling for a nationwide plan to equip all schools and hospitals with air conditioning. Nurses have complained of brutal conditions in un-air conditioned hospitals.“It is shameful that babies born in hospitals, that the sick, that the elderly are forced to endure such heatwaves because they refuse to install air conditioning,” Ms. Le Pen said in an interview Wednesday. “These heatwaves kill. We must implement a major climate plan.”There has been a long resistance to air conditioning in France. A 2021 OpinionWay survey found 75 percent of respondents not planning to buy air conditioners with many of them citing environmental concerns. Nearly six out of ten people surveyed said they would rather “suffer from the heat” to protect the environment.But there are signs of a growing acceptance of air conditioning in France despite the green movement calling it a band aid and one of the worst solutions amid climate change.The Ecologists party has suggested offering incentives for investment in energy-efficient buildings is more important. “The real problem is poor insulation,” Marie Tondelier said during a heat wave last year.Ms. Tondelier, however, is now admitting there needs to be some air conditioning options — at least for schools and hospitals. “There are places where we just can’t do without it now,” Marie Tondelier said in an interview this week.Ms. Tondelier said air conditioning can only be part of the solution because of environmental concerns. A majority of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power, however, and air conditioning proponents say it does not create any greenhouse gas emissions.Schools across France have shut this week due to the heat. The mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire released emergency funds and vowed to buy at least one air conditioning unit for every school in the city by the end of next week.“While the French Greens call for ‘climate leave’ to beat the heat, the Socialist mayor of Paris is just using emergency funds to buy AC for schools,” a climate expert at the Carnegie Endowment, Noah Gordon, noted in an X post.The president of the Paris regional council said air conditioning is also needed on public transportation due to a growing issue with heat waves. Ms. Valerie Pécresse says since 2016 the city has added 1,6000 air conditioned trains in the subway and commuter lines. She plans to have air conditioning in all buses and trains by 2032.

France’s Greens Propose Paid Days Off Instead of Air Conditioning To Respond to Heat Waves

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