People are seemingly unaware that heat pumps are just an AC with a tiny additional valve in the pipes :) .
A heatpump is more energy efficient than most other forms of heating. A heatpump is not always the most efficient way to cool a house.
Both are active temperature control, and both are much more efficient than previous forms of heating and cooling.
There's also the fact that cooling uses much less energy than heating because the temperature differential is usually much less extreme. It takes less energy to go from 100F/37C > 75F/23C than it does to go from 32F/0C > 65F/18C.
I'm not saying people are always right when considering cooling a luxury while considering heating a necessity, but there is a historical reason for that mindset.
I think building design/thermal mass and population density/location has changed quite a bit over the centuries.
In a traditional AC unit, heat is produced by either electric strips or by a gas burner, no refrigeration circuit is involved in the heating cycle. So, just a blower motor runs, compressor (and condenser fan) never runs in the heating cycle.
In heat pumps, refrigeration circuit does both heating and cooling. So, compressor works in both cycles.
One can install an efficient AC unit with electric strips (gas burner) with "efficient ECM motor (for air blower) + VFD compressor (single phase to DC to three phase AC with variable frequency) + modern controls to manage both inside and outside motors." That's where modern AC units are driving at.
Heat pump uses electricity for compressor fan and fan in that outdoor unit. In an efficient conventional AC unit, one trades the extra electricity used in the outside unit for the electricity used for heat strips.
Geothermal heat pump is efficient and is a different ball game.
The resistence to cooling with AC comes from way before HP became popular and remains, somehow. Part of it is because it's perceived as a luxury (while heating is not), partly because being relatively uncommon until recently its surprising for some people and therefore the perceived cause of illnesses and malaise.
It'll go away. Because it's really vitally important, and because air/air HPs are perfect trojan horses to normalize AC cooling.
.. That being said, I had to call 3 companies in Germany before I even found one willing to sell me a air/air HP. And the cooling function has to be carefully ignored if you want it subsidized.
I sincerely hope so. But the trouble is that politicians and activists are very fond of picking smaller targets for their negativity. Because it is easier to wage war on a regular mid to poor salary-man neighbor instead of some faceless corporation with the billions of cash, a staff of lawyers and incorporated half the world away in a jurisdiction with thoroughly corrupted judges. This is why we are seeing this avalanche of anti-social initiatives under the slogans of "progress". Like the insane fines for not following insane garbage sorting rules in some select countries, or the taxation levied on the individuals and small businesses instead of megacorps, or the whole legalized surveillance while rich people and corpos are excluded, or this AC insanity now (had any activist in EU protested under any business center that it should be without AC? Nope. But firing at individuals is easier and grants more satisfying results.
They don't compromise - even when a compromise would strictly improve the world. Well, most voters hate to make compromises but the greenies seem to do it harder. In NZ we have a very left wing Green Party who in theory could have power in a minority coalition with our "conservative" party. However politically it would never work. I think both parties veto working together, but New Zealand loses out on green progress because of that. Instead the Greens only make a coalition with the left, which is already quite green focused so the Greens remain rather impotent.
Conservative greeny voters in New Zealand need better representation.
Fortunately our heat pumps usually also have AC. I can only guess we don't have any insane rules about that because having a heatpump with AC has been normal for decades (AC isn't just for the hated tall-poppy wealthy: and very few have a dedicated aircon unit).
This 100%. This what I recently articulated for myself about my dissatisfaction with certain groups of people who claim to be very progressive and so on. Some of those people are so radical that they are unwilling to compromise even on a tiny things. If they get to get 100% of something and other people get to get 50% of they want, or if they would compromise and both sets would get 90% or 95% or even sometimes 99% (both), they are absolutely unwilling to cease demanding strict 100%.
Basically they claim to be pro-social, but if we think about the issue in general, they are the ones failing the prisoner's dilemma, just on the opposite side. Not willing to compromise on anything even if they do then humanity on average would win more.