Illustration: Kate Dehler for Bloomberg Green
The Surprising Force Stalling Climate Progress: California Restaurants
When Berkeley became the first US city to ban natural gas in new buildings, the California Restaurant Association fought back, and won. Now gas companies are planning to leverage that victory nationally.
In the fight to ratchet down climate emissions and soothe the most dangerous effects of an overheating planet, one of the most withering setbacks in recent memory wasn’t delivered by the oil industry or coal excavators, but, rather, a group of restaurants in California.
When Berkeley became the first city in the country to ban the extension of gas pipes into new buildings, it targeted a contentious source of climate pollution. The combustion of gas inside of homes and businesses to power things like furnaces, water heaters and stoves accounts for 9% of California’s emissions, or 33 million metric tons of heat-trapping gases per year, equivalent to the entire climate footprint of Hong Kong.