How Africans can stay cool as the climate warms
Air-conditioning is only part of the answer
空调只是其中的一部分解决办法。
2024年9月05日 09:06 上午 |拉各斯
FEW PLACES on Earth are more familiar with the deadly consequences of extreme heat than countries in Africa. Heat kills crops, spoils food and medicines, and makes it impossible to work, study or sleep. As the planet warms, the number of days when people on the continent will be exposed to excessively high temperatures is set to rise. How will they keep themselves, their food and their medicines cool?
地球上很少有地方比非洲更了解极端高温的致命后果。高温会毁掉庄稼，食物和药品，还会让人无法工作、学习或睡觉。随着地球变暖，非洲大陆居民将面临更多极端高温天气。他们该如何保持自己、食物和药品凉爽呢？
One answer is air-conditioning, which Lee Kwan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, once credited with changing “the nature of civilisation by making development possible in the tropics.” Yet air-conditioning, while cooling people, worsens global warming through power use and refrigerant leakage and by warming the area around air-conditioned buildings. It also remains inaccessible to most Africans. Only half the population has grid power. Even where it is stable, the cost of running an air-conditioner is forbiddingly high, partly because lax regulation means most are energy- intensive and inefficient. Only 5% of African homes have a unit, a percentage that has barely budged in two decades.
一个答案就是空调，新加坡的开国领袖李光耀曾经说过，空调改变了“通过让热带地区发展成为可能而改变了文明的本质”。但是，尽管空调可以给人们降温，却会通过能源消耗和制冷剂泄漏加剧全球变暖，并使得安装了空调的建筑周围的环境变得更热。而且对大多数非洲人来说还无法触及。只有一半的人口有电力供应。即使在供电稳定的地方，运行空调也成本高昂，部分原因是监管不力导致大多数设备能耗高效率低。只有5% 的非洲家庭拥有空调，在过去20年里这个比例几乎没有增长。
As temperatures and incomes rise, that number is likely to rise, and efforts are under way to make air-conditioning more sustainable. Yet given the unstable grid, lack of money and the need to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, other ways of keeping cool will be needed, too.
随着天气变热和人们挣钱多了，这个比例可能会增加，人们正在努力让空调更环保。但是考虑到电网不稳定、缺乏资金以及需要减少温室气体排放，我们也需要其他方法来降温。
For now, much climate-friendly innovation is concerned not with cooling people, but with ensuring that heat does not spoil their food and medicine. Cameroon and Sierra Leone use solar-powered fridges to keep vaccines and other temperature-sensitive medicines stable. Combined with battery storage, they stay cool even when there is no sun or alternative power supply. Some freeze water into an ice lining, meaning they do not even need batteries. Supplied to the Democratic Republic of Congo during the covid- 19 pandemic, they can now be used for mpox vaccines.
目前，很多环保创新并不是为了让人们凉快，而是为了确保热量不会毁掉他们的食物和药品。喀麦隆和塞拉利昂用太阳能冰箱来保持疫苗和其他对温度敏感的药物稳定。再加上电池储存，即使没有阳光或备用电源，它们也能继续保持凉爽。有些地方甚至把水冻成冰层，这样就连电池都不需要了。在新冠肺炎大流行期间提供给刚果民主共和国的这些冰箱现在可以用于天花疫苗。
Similar efforts are under way in agriculture, where up to 18% of harvests are currently lost to insufficient cold storage. Some startups are offering farmers space to rent in solar-powered cold rooms. SureChill, a British- based maker of solar-powered fridges, offers a cheap pay-as-you-go plan for the use of its $800 fridges, as long as farmers prove that they will generate income from their use.
目前在农业领域也有类似的努力，因为高达18%的收成都因为缺乏足够的冷藏设施而损失了。一些新创公司给农民提供太阳能冷藏室的租赁空间。英国的SureChill公司生产太阳能冰箱，他们推出了一个便宜的按需付费计划，只要农民能证明他们会通过使用这个价值800美元的冰箱来获得收入就可以使用。
When it comes to keeping people cool with limited or no air-conditioning, building design is essential, particularly in dense cities. Nearly 60% of Africans will probably live in cities by the end of the decade. Around 70% of the buildings that are likely to exist on the continent by 2040 have yet to be built, according to the UN. That provides ample room for incorporating simple, cheap and sustainable building practices, such as building walls with mud brick or insulating them with charcoal, and making window shades from cheaper woods, such as eucalyptus. For existing houses, coating roofs in reflective white paint can reduce indoor temperatures and also cool the urban environment, as long as buildings are painted in clusters.
要让人们在没有或只有有限空调的情况下保持凉爽，建筑设计至关重要，尤其是在人口密集的城市中。据联合国估计，到本十年末，将近60%的非洲人将生活在城市里。到2040年，在非洲大陆可能存在的建筑中，约70%都还没盖起来。这为采用简单、廉价且可持续的建筑实践提供了充足的空间，比如用泥砖砌墙或者用木炭保温，并且使用更便宜的木材制作窗帘。对于现有房屋来说，只要把屋顶涂成反光白色就能降低室内温度，并且也能使城市环境变得更凉爽一些，前提是建筑物需要成片地进行涂装。
Governments will need to help scale up sustainable practices. They must abolish rules that prevent people from accessing cooling, such as high import tariffs on fridges. Designing regulation that favours greener appliances and improving labelling will help consumers choose more efficient options. Tighter building standards, heat-adaptation plans and more greenery for cities could cool the urban environment. The harder governments try, the more Africans will have access to some cool comfort as the planet warms.
政府需要帮助推广可持续发展的做法。他们必须取消一些阻碍人们使用制冷设备的规定，比如对冰箱征收高额进口关税。制定支持更环保家电的法规，并改善产品标签，这样消费者就能选择更节能的选项。加强建筑标准、制定适应高温天气的计划，还有在城市增加绿化都可以让城市变得更凉爽。政府越是努力，非洲人民在地球变暖时就越能享受到清凉舒适。
