Thermal comfort and cooling strategies in the Brazilian Amazon. An assessment of the concept of fuel poverty in tropical climates.

Abstract

Fuel poverty has increasingly been associated with thermal discomfort, health-related issues and winter deaths in the Global North because it can force families to choose between food and a warmer environment. If we juxtapose this concept in the Global South, what can we learn? A recent study shows that between 1.8 and 4.1 billion people, especially in India, Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, will need indoor cooling to avoid heat-related health issues, but there are few studies addressing cooling as a fuel poverty issue. This paper aims to address this blind spot in the literature, linking fuel poverty, thermal comfort and cooling strategies in the Brazilian Amazon. This study draws from current definitions and indicators of fuel poverty in the GlobalNorth and juxtaposes it in the context of tropical areas to greater understand how fuel poverty affects human health, livelihood strategies and social justice in rural communities in hot climates. To do so, this paper uses qualitative methods and a conceptual framework to guide the analysis. I refer to the right to affordable and sustainable cooling solutions and thermally efficient house materials as 'energy relief'.

Regional energy poverty reevaluated: A direct measurement approach applied to France and Japan

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Sustainable Cooling in a Warming World: Technologies, Cultures, and Circularity

“…For example, the practice of wetting clothing and taking several cold showers during the day has been found in Australia (92). Although preferences for the AC are reported in all regions (hot/dry, temperate, and hot/humid) (65,93,(97)(98)(99)(100), activities such as visiting shopping malls or other public buildings to seek cooling is noted in hot/tropical (92,101) and temperate climates (102). Other reported local behavioral adaptive strategies are walking barefoot on cold stones, as in Bangladesh (103), or keeping clay pots filled with water to cool the ground and roof, as in India (63,104).…”

Understanding air-conditioned lives: qualitative insights from Doha

“…Some studies have also drawn on these methods to explore how air-conditioning has become part of locally specific patterns of everyday life. These include examinations of how young Singaporeans are particularly alive to the fashion opportunities associated with colder environments (Hitchings & Lee 2008), how air-conditioning allows the middle classes of Manilla in the Philippines to embrace locally valued 'Western' aesthetics (Sahakian & Steinberger 2011), and how beliefs about appropriately 'modern' ways of managing ambient experience justify its use in Brazil and elsewhere (Mazzone 2020;Chang & Winter 2015). These methods have also revealed how widespread air-conditioning can serve to make the absence of sweat both a marker of middleclass distinction in India (Wilhite 2008) and an embodied state linked to positive peer evaluation amongst girls in Southeast Australia (Waitt 2013) who may feel happier to sweat at home where they feel more protected from public condemnation.…”