The cooling paradox: Rising air conditioner adoption in Bangladesh as a driver of energy insecurity and compounding climate risk

Bangladesh's rapidly expanding air conditioning sector presents a structural paradox: adoption driven by climate necessity simultaneously deepens the energy insecurity and emission trajectories that climate adaptation is meant to relieve. This paper examines this paradox as a compound policy problem spanning energy security, climate risk, and distributive justice. Drawing on four data streams: Bangladesh National Cooling Plan, Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022, Power Development Board's daily electricity dataset, and supplementary institutional sources, three illustrative scenario pathways are developed to 2040. Under business-as-usual conditions, air-conditioning-attributable electricity demand reaches approximately 60,474 GWh by 2040, equivalent to 56% of current national generation, resulting in 36.3 Mt. of grid carbon-dioxide emissions. Refrigerant emissions increase from 1571 to 42,476 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2040, resulting in combined cooling-sector emissions equal to 58% of Bangladesh's current national total. An accelerated policy scenario combining mandatory efficiency standards, mandatory inverter adoption, and low global warming potential refrigerant transition reduces combined emissions by approximately 97% relative to business-as-usual. The paper also shows that Bangladesh's Solar Home Systems program has not decarbonized the national grid, that cooling growth is structurally incompatible with Sustainable Development Goal 7, and that cooling access concentrates among affluent households while costs fall disproportionately on approximately 21% of the population, at high risk from inadequate cooling. Refrigerant transition emerges as the highest-return intervention and 2026–2030 as the critical window before infrastructure choices lock in. Policy implications span mandatory efficiency enforcement, accelerated refrigerant transition, passive cooling standards, and equity-centered access programs for heat-vulnerable populations.