Europe Is Dying of Heat — Blame the European Right
World Cup tourists prove they want the air conditioning their politicians deny them.
Europeans are literally dying in a heatwave. The obvious villain is the green left, whose hysterical opposition to air conditioning (and human flourishing) consigns their populations to suffer every summer. But we can’t blame them alone. The greens are doing exactly what they promised — the movement was founded to guilt Western nations into reversing the technological progress of modernity. The real problem is the European right is feckless and unwilling to fight back against climate ideology.
The heatwave scorching Europe has already killed more than 5,500, with some estimates exceeding 20,000. France recorded its hottest day since records began nearly 80 years ago. The United Kingdom broke its all-time June temperature record. Italy placed 16 cities under its highest heat alert. The World Health Organization warned Tuesday of “more deadly weeks” to come.
And through it all, only one in five European buildings has air conditioning — even though widespread AC reduces the risk of dying on an extremely hot day by roughly 75 percent. Air-conditioning technology has existed for generations, and Europeans have the money to retrofit. What they lack is political will.
That’s a left-wing failure, first and foremost. Europe’s green parties and socialist governments imposed draconian laws and regulations designed to make energy expensive. They believe discomfort endured “for the sake of the planet” is virtuous. The result is a people too afraid to install a thermostat and too artificially poor to turn it on if they did.
Faced with this self-imposed misery, the European right has a golden opportunity. The message is laughably simple: “Vote for us, and we won’t force grandma to die of heat stroke.”
And yet the right won’t do it. I recently spoke with a politician from Alternative for Germany — the most right-wing major political force in Europe’s largest economy. When I brought up his nation’s dismal energy failures and skyrocketing prices, all I heard back was a long list of everything that can;t be done: There are just too many laws, regulations, interest groups, and obstacles to overcome. It was a tacit admission the best Germany can hope for is a slower defeat.
Other European right-wing parties are even worse, proactively collaborating with destructive environmentalists. Germany’s mainstream conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union, proudly advocates a government-imposed target of net zero by 2045. In the United Kingdom, leaders of the so-called Conservative Party have attempted to outdo each other in environmentally driven decline: Theresa May legislated net zero into law in 2019, Boris Johnson oversaw legislation to phase out gas and diesel engines, and Kemi Badenoch labeled net zero “impossible” without offering any architecture for how to undo the damage her own party has done.
It’s no wonder Reform UK won majorities in 10 English councils last year, promising to scrap net zero. But even so, seven out of 10 Reform-run councils have simply removed climate targets from documents rather than replacing them with the freedom to change.
Europe’s left and right have converged on the same destination: accepting managed decline.
But that’s obviously not what their people want — and surprisingly, nothing has proven that more than the World Cup. As Europeans sweat through a deadly heatwave, their soccer fans of all political persuasions are here in America posting viral videos of Walmart, Buc-ee’s, free refills, and, of course, ubiquitous air conditioning. These videos are not only reminding Americans we live in a land of abundance — they’re making Europeans question why they can’t have the same.
Because what America has may be unique but it isn’t an accident. It is the product of a can-do culture, a relatively libertarian policy environment, personal ambition, and, critically, a political system with at least one party willing to defend what has made America great.
Republicans should take soccer fans’ praise as both a compliment and a warning. The abundance and prosperity Europeans love most about America are exactly what Republicans try to defend. But the continent they call home shows a possible future for America if Republicans choose to reject freedom for our own version of managed decline — one rooted in arbitrary data-center restrictions, AI hostility, smothering permitting regimes, and a failure to engage with environmental concerns rooted in conservative principles.
Europe’s right has made peace with the idea the future will be smaller. Let us hope Republicans never do the same.
Chris Johnson is the founder and president of the American Energy Leadership Institute.
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