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It depends on the kind of heatpumps, in a lot of cases the heatpump is installed to replace a boiler, reusing the radiators and hot water circulation already available.

Unfortunately in this case the heatpump cannot be used as AC.

It'll be both, even a very aggressive response will take decades for it to Stop getting hotter then at best it will not get hotter. It will be 4-5 decades at best before it gets cooler.

Methane adds some uncertainty to that though. If you were to stop using gas it might cool off after it disappears in a decade in the atmosphere.

But it will keep getting hotter in every circumstance even if we act aggressively on climate change.

For detached houses, you can do split systems with multiple indoor units per one outdoor unit. In a flat, you're a bit more fucked because you might need permission from other people in the building, etc.

Split heat pumps are very common in Southern Europe. Modern units have insane efficiency, in the order of 4 units of heat or cold per unit of energy expended, and can be installed almost anywhere, in contrast to central units. The only downside is that they don't provide hot water.

Add to that, that all these old UK houses have about as much insulation as a cereal box.

I live in Estonia, temperatures don't ever get to 39C but they do get up to 33-34 and for some reason my house gets pretty humid even at high temps, so it's worse inside than outside, even if it's hotter outside. I got a heat pump installed about 2 years ago, cost around 2k installed, but then again I went for a beefy Mitsubishi unit (big house and only one unit for now). It's an absolute game changer in the summer, and in the winter when it gets cold, it saves me effort as well - I have to load the furnace less.

I figure it's already earned its keep via the heating, but also if I do 2 extra hours of productive work 2 days a week, that's 10 weeks of summertime heat till it's paid off in full and while most summers don't come with 10 weeks of heat, every summer has at least 4-5 hot weeks here.

Nope, UK is not part of Europe anymore ;)

Why would they need more airco when many houses and apartments still don’t even have proper shutters for windows and many people still don’t know you should keep your windows closed during peak heat hours

I'm doing all of that have have good insulation, ground floor. Doesn't help when the temperature never drops below 20°C for a week (and I literally got up at 5:00 when it was coldest to air out my flat).

So yeah, I'm getting an AC this summer.

Overall, I completely agree with this comment. But I live in the middle of the forest, completely surrounded by trees and when it hits 35c that air conditioning is very needed. Trees are nice but an air conditioner they are not.

There's a huge difference in that between the UK and countries further to the south: for example, pretty much all dwellings in Portugal have outside window shutters whilst in the UK it's incredibly rare (instead they have inside heavy courtains, so the light goes into the house and the INSIDE gets absorbed by transformed into heat by the courtains) but on the other hand housing insulation is generaly complete total crap in Portugal, but less so in the UK (still not at Scandinavia or Russian levels of efficiency, but way better than Portugal) so in Winter unless one uses massive amounts of electricity/gas for heating, it's literally colder indoors in Portugal than in Britain.

At the very least both Portugal and Spain are much better adapted to higher temperatures than elsewhere in Europe, and that's anchored on traditional techniques (such as outside window shutters, houses painted in light colors and the type of roofing used) rather than the brute-force energy-heavy techniques (such as heavy use of Aircon) so common in places like the US.