The Push to Convert Our Homes and Buildings to Electric Power Has Been Picking Up Momentum.
Meeting recently under the ever-longer shadow cast by Fossil Fuels, countries from around the world gathered for the annual climate summit sponsored by the United Nations – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at Expo City, Dubai, UAE. This is the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28 UAE) tasked ostensibly with stemming the tide of an ever-warming planet in ironically, the hottest year on record.
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The Elephant In the Room
That is of course, the emissions from burning hydrocarbon fossil fuels, – oil, coal, and natural gas – that have been the consensus reason for the dangerous warming of the planet. They are also the cheap and abundant fuel that has powered the modern world since the industrial revolution. Inevitably, wealth, and politics would clash with environmental fears engendered by Climate Change . Amazingly enough, for the first-time signees, “pledged transitioning away from our dependance of fossil fuels.” That’s right. The previous 27 UNFCCC conferences haven’t even mentioned fossil fuels.
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Grass-Roots Initiatives
Independent of the grand, but often wanting vows of the UNFCCC climate conferences, In America at least there have arisen environmental grass-roots initiatives in over 100 American municipalities to place restrictions and bans on natural gas in both residential and commercial new construction.
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Berkeley, CA
Since 2019, the city of Berkely CA, has been attempting to pass new building codes restricting the installation of natural gas piping in new private and public construction beginning in 2020. The California Restaurant Association (CRA), a trade organization representing  the restaurant industry and backed  by American Petroleum Association (APA) and SoCalGas, the largest gas utility in the US, filed suit in federal court preventing the building codes from going into effect. The suit alleges that the city of Berkely had illegally usurped federal law in passing the law. It’s now nearly 2024 and this is still being wrangled in the courts. Three subsequent countersuits and as of now, new gas mains will continue to be installed.
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New York, NY
On the other coast, the state of New York in May passed the first state laws banning gas-powered stoves, furnaces, and propane heating in all residences by 2006 for buildings shorter than 7 seven stories; for taller structures the deadline is 2009. Nevertheless, exemptions exist for a wide variety of buildings ranging from large commercial, industrial, retail and healthcare providers. Environmental groups maintain that these initiatives don’t go nearly far enough.
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The Difference Between Banning and Restricting
To be fair, the terms banning and restricting need to be understood. Banning allows for no, or only unimportant exceptions; restricting limits and defines the legal use and misuse of natural gas. Confusing or conflating these terms can generate much heat, and little light – the perfect grist for today’s political entertainment combine.
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Conservatives Respond
Conservatives as expected, began crafting state laws preventing communities and municipalities from passing such ordinances and laws banning or restricting natural gas. Since our last inquiry, 20 mostly rust belt, Mountain and Southern states have begun and/or succeeded in passing laws proscribing the proscribers. This also includes powerful natural gas companies such as So Cal Gas, and trade organizations such as the (AGA), who point out that such laws will remove an important power option for consumers.
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A Substitute for Coal?
Natural gas is regularly touted as an environmentally responsible substitute for coal and oil, in combatting emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). An unhappy fact though is that methane, the primary component of natural gas contributes significantly to the carbonization of the atmosphere. In the United States, commercial and residential property make up an estimated 13% of total US GHG emissions in 2019 says the EPA. 80% of those emissions were from the natural gas that heats our homes and runs our stoves.
Conversely, it’s far easier to promote laws and policies that limit and obstruct the livelihoods of other peoples the world over currently working and investing in the fossil fuel industries. Is it not disingenuous to insist that a country such as Brazil, or any other raw materials-rich, exporting country should forgo exploiting their natural resources for the same wealth created by the very societies enriched from burning hydrocarbon fuels.
The people who have significantly Iess to lose tend to have the loudest voices – but that doesn’t invalidate the defensible fact that the most significant contributor to the poisoning of our environments are the emissions from burning fossil fuels. It just makes them rather insufferable.

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