At least here in the UK, recent revisions to the default planning rules around heat pumps (“Permitted Development” legislation) removed the restriction that an install be “used solely for heating purposes” and revised this to “not be used solely for the purpose of cooling”.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant also permits cooling - it’s based on the heating credentials of a unit only.

So in Britain at least, installing cooling systems in private residences seems to be getting easier.

> Air conditioning in buildings is likely viewed as a threat to gas providers as most modern cooling devices also have a heating mode that competes directly with gas heating.

Not sure it makes sense, most of those countries are already phasing out fuel/gas boilers.

IMO it's just cultural shift is slow to adjust (in those countries, a few decades ago AC would have been a wasteful luxury, summer temperature would be well below 30 except for a few days).

Regarding air conditioning in Europe, the issue is terminally onlime assholes mostly not Europeans trying to start culture war around them.

And I used that offensive word intentionally, because it fits perfectly.

It’s a cultural issue, nothing to do with industry interests

Reality is much of Europe hasn’t needed air con until recently

mMy phone tells me that the temperature this week has been 15°C above the long term average for this time of year.

Don’t really need air con when the peak temperature in the past has been 20–25°C