Last week, BVI residents once again found themselves at the mercy of a brutal heatwave, with temperatures spiking to a heat index of 103 degrees Fahrenheit. While many of us cherish the sun’s warmth as part of island life, this scorching weather has become increasingly relentless—reaching new, unbearable highs over recent months.
As frequent heat waves hit our shores in April, May, July, and again in August, it is clear that these searing temperatures are no longer an anomaly. They are becoming our new normal.
However, as we fight to keep cool, we are also unintentionally fueling the very crisis that is making our lives hotter.
This paradox lies at the heart of a growing issue: the increased reliance on air conditioning (AC) as a necessary but damaging response to the intensifying heat.
Seeking Comfort in a Warming World
To understand the impact of this trend, I spoke to five Tortola residents who recently installed AC units in their homes.
Their reasons were unsurprising. The oppressive heat had become unbearable.
One resident explained their urgency, saying, “I had to do it for my aging parents. They can’t handle this heat anymore, and I had no choice but to get AC installed to keep them safe.” Another resident noted that their electricity bill had doubled after the installation, a heavy financial burden, but one they were willing to bear for a good night’s sleep.
While the initial unit costs range from about $500 – $1,000 and up, the real hit comes with the recurring energy bills. All residents I interviewed confirmed they had seen significant spikes in their electricity costs, particularly during the peak summer months. One young man lamented the trade-off, stating, “My bill has almost doubled, but without the AC, I don’t know how I would make it”. “That’s the price of comfort”, he added.
For others still contemplating the purchase, the decision comes with anxiety. “I’m exploring the market now,” one person told me, “but I’m really worried about the cost—not just the installation, but my electricity bill and whether I can afford it long-term.”
This concern reflects the struggle many households face in the BVI, forced to choose between comfort and crippling energy costs, all while unknowingly adding to a cycle of emissions that is heating the planet.
A Deadly Cycle of Heat and Carbon
Herein lies the irony: air conditioning, the very thing offering us relief from the heat, is also accelerating the climate crisis that’s causing temperatures to rise.
The more we cool our homes with AC units, the more fossil fuels are burned to meet the demand for electricity.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that this accounts for 7% of global electricity consumption, contributing nearly 3% of global CO2 emissions (IEA 2023).
On top of that, AC refrigerants themselves are potent greenhouse gases, compounding the problem.
In the British Virgin Islands, where temperatures seem to be constantly reaching new highs, air conditioning is starting to feel less like a luxury and more like a lifeline.
Yet, the costs—both environmental and financial—are high.
I raised these concerns with Premier Honourable Dr Natalio Wheatley at a recent press conference.
“What I would like to see all of us do is make a personal commitment to our own climate mitigation matters”, he said. “ I think climate change is not anything we can control but we can control our response to it and part of what we can do to help ourselves is switch to alternative energy and to focus on our own actions that we can control.”
Residents, like Kiara, a young woman residing in the west of Tortola, are thinking critically about the environmental impact of their choices. She explained, “I’m holding off on getting AC because I’m worried about climate change. I’m trying to figure out if I can run one on solar power instead.”
This level of awareness is commendable but rare in a system where individual action alone cannot solve a collective crisis.
The government is aiming to introduce more green energy solutions for the territory, with one ambitious proclamation calling for “solar panels on every roof”.
The Solar Technology Energy Programme (STEP) hopes to accomplish this by offering participants a zero-cost initiation into solar energy. Through this programme, the BVI Electricity Corporation would cover the cost of equipment and installation for homeowners interested in having solar panels placed on their roofs to feed back into the grid. The programme was announced in April 2024.
“I believe [the programme] will go a very long way of ensuring that we are able to stabilise our electricity bills by minimizing the need to import fossil fuels”, the premier said.
The premier makes an important point – the solution is not to make fossil fuel energy more affordable, it is to do away with their use.
At the moment unfortunately residents are left to fend for themselves in a market dominated by fossil fuels.
Those of us in the Caribbean, who have contributed the least to global carbon emissions, are feeling the brunt of climate change—experiencing higher temperatures, stronger storms, and more frequent droughts. Yet, as we seek relief from these extremes, we’re being forced into a cycle that only deepens our vulnerability.
It’s a cruel paradox and one that highlights the urgent need for systemic change—not just in how we cool our homes, but in how we power our communities.
The people of Tortola—and the wider BVI—deserve more than the impossible choice between suffocating heat and skyrocketing electricity bills.
This story was published with the support of the Caribbean Climate Justice Journalism Fellowship, which is a joint venture of Climate Tracker and Open Society Foundations.