It’s Friday, January 6, and new buildings in Los Angeles will soon be prohibited from using natural gas.
This year, Los Angeles will become California’s largest city to implement a ban on natural gas in new buildings. That’s thanks to an ordinance unanimously approved last month by the City Council which requires that new buildings within city limits be constructed with all-electric appliances.
Environmental advocates have hailed the law as crucial for achieving Los Angeles’ goal of making all new buildings net-zero by 2030. Currently, buildings are the city’s most emissions-intensive sector, accounting for some 43 percent of its overall climate pollution.
“We think this is a super important, logical first step that allows us to make progress in our net-zero carbon goals,” Chelsea Kirk, policy analyst at the economic justice nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, told the Los Angeles Daily News. Electrifying the city’s buildings could also reduce indoor air pollution, limit the risk of fires and explosions, and even lower construction costs.
The law — which requires electricity to be used for everything from space and water heating systems to cooking equipment — will apply to most new buildings approved by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety after April 1. Affordable housing proposals will get treated a little differently: Those that are approved before June 1 won’t have to comply with the rules. Meanwhile, secondary housing units on single-family lots won’t be affected by the new requirements, and restaurants will still be allowed to use gas ranges and ovens.
Los Angeles’ ordinance follows dozens of similar ones in cities around California, including Berkeley, Cupertino, San Francisco, and San Jose. To meet a statewide target to cut greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, experts say California lawmakers should ban natural gas in new construction for all buildings when the state updates its building codes in 2024. Equally important will be funding to install electric appliances in the state’s existing building stock.
“As Los Angeles puts the city’s all-electric code into action in 2023, it must build on this momentum as it continues discussions about how to decarbonize existing buildings already linked to fossil gas infrastructure,” Olivia Walker and and Megan Ross, building decarbonization experts with the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog post.
Editor’s note: Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
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