Thank you! I find the opinion that AC is somehow a decadent luxury but heating is essential to be a very Northern US/Eurocentric view.

From a pure energy usage perspective, it may make more sense to live in a warm climate that never needs heating versus a cold climate that never needs AC.

Yes, heating consumes a lot of energy. On the other hand, most buildings even in fairly cool climates are absolute sieves when it comes to energy efficiency, mostly because energy has been artificially cheap, historically. It's possible to construct buildings that require very little heating, but of course turning all the existing buildings into Passivhäuser overnight is not really a reasonable proposition.

It's not a wasteful luxury. It's critical. But more attention needs to be paid to overall efficiency. Better home insulation and building materials, and better AC unit placement and better units themselves.

France as a policy to reduce heating energy in households aswell. It's even seen as a primary mean to reduce energy waste. People are more and more conscious that you don't need to heat your house at 70F+. It's ok to live with a sweater on.

> The negative externalities are interesting though

They're not interesting, because they're absolutely negligible. You're moving heat that was outside, back outside. Your house cooled the outside, and you're just undoing this insignificant amount of energy transfer. The only additional heating is from inefficiencies, which aren't so bad these days.

Also when A/C cooling is needed is very linked to when PV generates energy.