This study seems to assume that we will power basically none of the oncoming air conditioning with renewable energy and that air conditioners are just going to always be leaking.

This study seems to assume that we will power basically none of the oncoming air conditioning with renewable energy

Well, to be fair, we sure haven't worked very hard on creating current consumer air conditioning with renewable energy.

Very true. I looked around out of curiosity because they make pretty substantial claims about greenhouse emissions from the A/C units themselves, but other sources claimed the emissions were a combination dirty fuel usage for energy generation and that they partially come from leakage of refrigerants.

That said, if most or all consumer electricity is provided by renewables (mine is!), the entire first half of that claim is invalidated. Though I guess they don't expect developing countries to jump on pure solar/wind development right away.