Berkeley Requires All New Construction to Be Electric

The Berkeley, Calif., city council recently passed a historic ordinance requiring all new buildings to be completely electric, the National Resources Defense Council reports.

This new law means no gas hook-ups will be installed in new houses, apartments, and commercial buildings. Existing buildings are not affected.

The city across the bay from San Francisco is not alone in pushing to reduce the use of gas, which is currently used for heating in 90 percent of California homes, and is a major source of pollution that harms our health and the environment. More than 50 other California cities are exploring the use of local building codes and ordinances to encourage or require all-electric new construction, paving the way for all of California, and other states, to follow suit in eliminating fossil-fuel heating sources from buildings.

The efforts are driven primarily by the urgency of slashing carbon pollution, which was highlighted by the last year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that said we have 12 years to contain the increase in global warming to 1.5 degrees, and made more real for California residents by the tragic wildfires that killed more than 100 people in the state during the past two years.

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