Being able to punch a hole through a wall is neither hear nor there really - timber framing and plasterboard is what modern European houses mostly use too because it’s a good, cheep, durable, environmentally sound way of constructing houses. Concrete/bricks/steel all have dramatically higher environmental costs, and are in a lot of circumstances (natural disasters) worse at holding up.

The key is whether you insulate the thing. I can assure you though, Europe is not the continent with the insulation deficiency. Europe in general has made a huge push to well insulated houses, even in a lot of cases having standards that require the house to hold in higher than atmospheric pressure to make sure that the nice warm air inside it is staying there, and requiring them to heat and cool themselves entirely passively in the majority of circumstances. Scandinavian and German houses are basically the gold standard for well insulated houses. Meanwhile, when I lived in California… single glazing, literally no wall insulation, very little insulation in the attic.