Best the corresponding parties can do is banning plastic straws (no impact but feels great) and massive bureaucratic hurdles for air conditioning in private homes (because it's an "unnecessary luxury" and if your apartment is unbearably hot during a heat wave where the temperature doesn't drop below 25 even at night, you're just not correctly using shades and windows).

Not really. We've made significant enough progress on this issue to prove that policy-driven progress is in fact possible.

This type of cynicism is both unwarranted and unhelpful.

These changes were often not driven by the "green" parties though.

This is far too complex a conversation to have at the level of abstraction you're trying to have it.

Just say what you're trying to say. I don't know what "green parties" refers to across the entire globe of climate efforts, but quite obviously yes, most of the positive climate policies have been pushed by people who care about the climate.

Just as obvious, most of those policies were not successfully enacted by the fringiest and most extreme versions of pro-climate people.

Not to mention there are plenty of environmental improvements that are vast and near-term quality of life improvements. The only penalty on many of these things is financial, but even that is only in the near-term, and in the medium to long term become financial wins.