NEW YORK: Summers in New York City are difficult for Anthony Gay and his family. A small, portable air conditioner in his bedroom is the only relief they have from soaring temperatures in their Brooklyn rental. "The rest of the apartment is literally unbearable to walk through,” said Gay, 40, whose asthmatic son struggles to breathe in the heat.

Heat can be a killer. An estimated 350 New Yorkers die prematurely each year because of extreme heat, according to the city’s 2024 Heat-Related Mortality Report. Lack of access to air conditioning at home is the most important risk factor in such deaths, it said. Yet, across the United States, about 12 percent of homes — or about 12.7 million households — had no access to air conditioning in 2020, according to the most recent government data. Many more had some air conditioning, like Gay, but not enough to beat the heat.

Most often, homes with little or no air conditioning are occupied by low-income residents —often renters — and people of color, a 2022 Boston University analysis of 115 US metro areas found. That leaves them vulnerable as climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, more intense and longer lasting. Heat stress now kills more people globally each year than any other weather-related cause, according to the World Health Organization — and many of these deaths occur indoors.

A Reuters survey of housing regulations in all 50 US states found that, while nearly half of them require landlords to maintain existing air conditioning units, none require that air-conditioning be provided. Nor do rental housing regulations describe air-conditioning as an essential service like plumbing, heat and electricity.

However, a small but growing number of US states, cities and counties have adopted legislation that impose maximum indoor temperature standards on rental housing. Now, America’s two largest population centers – New York City and Los Angeles County — as well as Austin, Texas, are proposing new indoor temperature maximums for renters. New York is proposing a cap of 78 Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius), and Austin is considering 85 Fahrenheit (29 C), while LA County has yet to formalize its target. New York City and Austin’s proposals would require that landlords install cooling systems, given the difficulty of retrofitting old building stock to allow for better air flow and other passive measures. The moves are setting up a showdown with powerful landlord lobbies. Similar bills in other jurisdictions — California, Texas and Hot Springs, Arkansas — have failed in recent years after landlords’ groups told policymakers they would need to raise rents to compensate for the costs of upgrading home electrical systems and adding air conditioning.

A matter of life and death

While air conditioning accounts for about four percent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions, which fuel climate change, research shows it also saves lives. A 2016 study estimated a 75 percent drop in the number of US heat-related deaths on hot days during the latter half of the 20th century after AC was introduced, according to findings published in the Journal of Political Economy.

Heat-related deaths are undercounted globally, epidemiologists say. The United Nations, in a report this year, said that modelled estimates suggest that between 2000 and 2019, approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year, with nearly half of those in Asia. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that heat-related deaths have been increasing, with approximately 2,302 in 2023 versus 1,602 two years previously. However, that data only includes death certificates that specifically mention heat and is regarded by many experts as a dramatic undercount.

Record-breaking heat waves in recent years have spurred some new legislation. Following the 2021 heat dome that hit the Pacific Northwest, the US state of Oregon in 2022 and Spokane, Washington, in 2024 approved measures to limit landlords’ ability to stop tenants from installing their own air-conditioners over concerns about liability or utility bills.

But many of America’s warmest cities and states are struggling to pass laws on safe temperatures. The Arkansas mountain city of Hot Springs last year abandoned a proposal for cooling standards in rental units after receiving complaints from landlord groups, said Phyllis Beard, a member of the city’s board of directors.

In an August 2023 email sent to the board, reviewed by Reuters, Hot Springs landlords said the proposal would "hurt the most vulnerable in our community by making affordable housing difficult if not impossible to provide”. Upgrading a single-family US home to a central air-conditioning system or adding an in-window unit to older homes generally costs between $2,000 and $10,000, according to figures from the American Society of Home Inspectors.

Climate shift

In LA County, the board of supervisors — its five-member governing body — is expected to vote later this year on a bill that could impact the county’s 3.4 million households, more than half of whom are renters. "There once was a time where we realized that people dying of the cold indoors is something that we needed to regulate,” said LA County supervisor Lindsey Horvath who put forward the motion. Many US jurisdictions require that rental housing can meet minimum indoor temperatures: California state law stipulates a minimum of 70 F (21 C). "Now with the way that the climate has shifted, we also have to think about those higher (temperatures),” she said.

By mid-century, central Los Angeles is expected to experience three times more days of temperatures above 95 F than it did between 1981 and 2000. Some California tenant groups worried that passing laws to force apartment upgrades could lead to evictions followed by higher rents — as the state’s eviction law allows landlords to remove tenants if a home renovation requires a permit and will take more than 30 days or is considered "unsafe”. — Reuters

LA County landlord associations also said they were gearing up to fight, and cited reasons from costs to liability to aesthetics. Poorly installed window AC units "could fall on people,” Daniel Yukelson, executive director of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, told Reuters. He also criticized such window units as "kind of unsightly”. — Reuters