https://www.rehva.eu/knowledge-base/rehva-journal/chapter/ai...

See the pie chart on page two: eletricity consumption from cooling systems is 17% of global consumption. The IPCC expects this usage to rise as temperatures rise.

I would also like to challenge the notion that human beings understand how to use air conditioning units. In pretty much every building I visited or vehicle I boarded with air conditioning, if the unit was on, the windows were also wide open at the same time. In Greece, where I'm from, in the summer, you can cool down just by walking past stores, with their doors thrown wide to signal they're open for business and their air conditioning blasting cool air onto the street. It may be 42°C in the shade, but in front of our shop, it's 15°! Come on in and buy our stuff! But put on your coat first.

Contemplate for a second the futility of this behaviour: air conditioning pumps heat out of a room, into the environment; leaving the windows open allows the heat to circulate back into the room. The unit typically has a thermostat, also typically set at an unrealistically low value, that would cause the user to turn on the heating in winter. The unit goes to work and pushes the warm air out trying to reach its target temperature. The warm air cycles back in from outside and tries to raise the temperature. The unit keeps working, and working, and working, wasting energy all the time. Eventually, this contributes to warming, which causes more people to buy and misuse air conditioning.

We might know how to survive a heat wave, by our clever use of technology, but we don't know how to use technology to avoid more and more severe heat waves.