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People Living in the Hottest Places on the Planet Are the Least Likely To Have Air Conditioners (qz.com)
Zoe Schlanger, writing for Quartz: In 2016, roughly 10% of the planet's energy use went towards air conditioning. Figures vary wildly from country to country, though, and some of the hottest regions on Earth use the least A/C -- for now. A new report from the International Energy Agency says that's about to change. By 2050, the intergovernmental agency predicts, global energy use from A/Cs will triple, reaching a level equivalent to China's total electricity demand today. The African continent is home to some of the hottest places on Earth, but fewer than 5% of people in most African nations own an air conditioner, and energy used for cooling comes to just 35 kWh per person living in the continent, according to the IEA. In India, where large parts of the country are hot all year round, people use an average of 70 kWh for cooling. Compared to nations where having an A/C is the norm, that's almost nothing at all.
The best insulator is air (actually it's vacuum, but that's prohibitively expensive aside from thermoses). Brick is actually a worse insulator than standard wood-frame construction with fiberglass insulation in the gaps.
Brick (and masonry) just feels cooler because it takes longer to heat up in the morning due to its greater mass. The larger mass means after absorbing the same amount of sunlight, its temperature increases less. But likewise it takes longer to cool down in the evening. This may not be an undesirable trait if you're in a desert-like area where the days are hot but the nights are cold. But in climates which are consistently cold or hot (i.e. most of the world), brick and masonry are about the worst possible building materials. Their greater mass increases the amount of energy you need to use on heating or cooling (because you need to heat or cool the bricks along with the interior air space).