South Africans might read this headline with slight confusion, but it is accurate. The Los Angeles Times reported that, citing the climate crisis, the Los Angeles City Council voted last Friday to ban most gas appliances in new construction of homes and large buildings, a policy that is expected to result in new homes and businesses coming equipped with electric stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters and furnaces.
As a South African, it may sound like the new policy is akin to taking a few steps back with regards to the climate crisis, but we are quite behind the global trend of turning to more environmentally friendly and sustainable sources of energy.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, natural gas emits close to 50% less carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal, with different types of coal producing varying amounts of CO2 while burning. Natural gas also emits less carbon dioxide when combusted than fuel.
If natural gas is less polluting than coal-fired power plants, why is this policy beneficial to the fight against climate change?
The LA County said, on their website, that almost every resident and business in unincorporated LA County receives half of their energy from renewable sources as part of the county’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2018, the state of California derived 31.36% of its energy needs from renewable resources such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass (usually cow manure), with natural gas contributing 34.91% and coal, 3.3% to the energy mix.
The South African Department of Energy Report stated that South Africa still relies heavily on coal for its electricity supply, with coal-fired power plants contributing 65% of our power. Only 3% is derived from gas and 11% from renewables.
Most North American and European countries’ primary source of cooking and heating energy is still natural gas which is piped into private homes by a gas supplier, very much like how water is piped into our homes.
This means that most homes in these countries do not have the ability to easily transition to an electrified grid which is able to power wall heaters, water heaters and stoves, which require a higher amount of electric energy.
To enable countries to transition into the use of renewable electricity, homes and buildings need to be able to accommodate electricity infrastructure.
Over 50 cities and counties in California have adopted similar policies banning or discouraging gas infrastructure in new homes and other buildings. LA was a little late to the game, said council member Nithya Raman, the policy’s lead author, but no longer.
Friday’s vote “puts us in line with climate leaders across the country,” she said in an interview with LA Times.
Raman’s motion will require newly constructed buildings to be emission-free, meaning they do not add to the carbon dioxide pollution that is heating the planet and leading to more destructive wildfires, more intense droughts, and deadlier heat waves. The zero-emission policy is likely to take effect in the next few years.
The outcome of the city’s new policy would see most new buildings coming equipped with electric heat pumps for space heating and cooling, plus electric water heaters and electric stoves.
The LA Times reported that the policy is in line with a national movement toward a green economy, with the Biden administration preparing to distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to make homes more energy efficient. This includes assisting cities with the switch from gas to electric appliances and infrastructure.
A docket submitted to policymakers by environmental organisations Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the RMI in response to the gas industry coalition opposition stated that “one of the most direct and meaningful actions the Commission can take is adopting an all-electric 2022 building code. We do not have the luxury of delay.”
The docket implores that stalling the adoption of an all-electric building code until the 2025 building code cycle would result in an additional 3 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution by 2030.
Delaying this transition would also forgo a critical policy tool to accelerate the market transformation of electrification technologies that are essential to achieving widespread building electrification and the resulting public health and climate benefits stated in that report.
IOL