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Con Ed works with supporters like the Urban Green Council, a nonprofit group promotes sustainable buildingHe argued in council sessions that the city grid could cope with the increase, in part because the biggest stress comes from air conditioning during the summer months. Group analysts argued that the switch to electric heating actually has the potential to reduce demand during the summer months, as many builders are expected to turn to heating. heat pumpsAlready common in Europe, it heats and cools spaces and consumes less energy than air conditioners.
“I think this new law will be the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel industry in America’s largest city and a world capital,” said Pete Sikora, climate director for New York Communities for Change. coalition of community and environmental groups The year-long campaign of street protests and rallies helped recruit council members.
“New York is responsible for 5 percent of the gas burned in buildings nationwide, that’s huge,” said Mr. Sikora. “As the world has failed to seriously face the crisis, NYC will take a big step forward.”
Banning gas connections is the latest challenge for an industry already beset by campaigns against hydraulic fracturing. pipelines and gas fired power plants; Permits for two such facilities were recently denied by state regulators. The fuel, long known as natural gas, which climate advocates prefer to call methane gas or cracked gas, It is less harmful to respiratory health than petroleum and emits less carbon, but producing it releases an even more potent greenhouse gas, methane.
In fact, the trends have made the gas industry nervous enough to lobby states to ban local districts from enacting gas bans. So far, 20 state legislatures, all controlled by Republicans, have passed laws preventing bans.
But in New York, where city and state leaders stressed that the law will help the state meet its ambitious climate goals, its main skeptics, National Grid and the New York Real Estate Board, have remained relatively quiet in their criticism.
James Whelan, head of the real estate group, who successfully lobbied for the initial exemption of large buildings, stressed in a statement that he supports the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, but said, “New Yorkers need reliable, affordable, carbon-free electricity to heat, cool and power their homes and businesses. ”
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