Several parts of Europe saw temperatures touch 40°C on Sunday (June 28), with France alone reporting 1,000 excess deaths during an unprecedented heatwave which began on June 20. The ongoing heatwave has affected more than 150 million people, disrupting power generation, damaging infrastructure and overwhelming healthcare systems. A rapid attribution study by World Weather Attribution found the heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change and made higher night-time temperatures up to 100 times more likely than they would have been two decades ago. The major policy debate now, however, concerns the public mandate for air-conditioning. The far-right National Rally Party in France, led by presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen, has announced a national air-conditioning plan to equip all schools and hospitals with ACs, as well as government-backed interest-free loans worth €20bn ($22.7bn) to allow about 40 million householders to install cooling units. In Britain, the opposition Conservatives have similarly argued for expanding domestic energy production, including fossil fuels, to meet rising electricity demand driven by cooling. Critics say the answer to extreme …