One thing that I think gets lost in the shuffle of air conditioning discourse:

AC units are generally heat pumps and they generally have smaller temperature differentials to overcome (i.e. heating a house to room temperature while it is snowing is a much bigger job than cooling a house to room temperature on all but the hottest of days).

This means, generally, AC is more energy efficient than direct heating like a furnace. The narrative about 'AC is going to destroy the world via emissions' is mostly because the already developed places have cooler climates than emerging places.