Their thinking is basically if we have mass aircon then our residential energy consumption will skyrocket. New purpose built offices and retail pretty much always have aircon though because they have obvious productivity benefits.

However they also don't encourage passive cooling or low cost active solutions either such have making sure building have pass throughs for airflow, shading of windows, or fan systems. Government seems to be forgetting that current projections have us with Madrid style weather in the next 30 years and we will all be waving our fists.