In March 2023, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) introduced a ban on furnaces and water heaters that generate Nitrogen Oxide. BAAQMD couched this move as an air pollution reduction measure, noting that gas‐powered furnaces and water heaters vent their exhaust to the outdoors, unlike stoves which were gas not included in the ban.
But the climate effects of natural gas appeared to be on the district’s agenda as well. It calculated that the ban would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4,810,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually by 2046. This savings amount to less than 0.1 percent of current U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
While the new regulations will not materially affect global warming, they will impose substantial costs on Bay Area homeowners.
[All this will accomplish is an increase in the outflow of population from the Bay area, and from California generally. The archipelago of climate-change regulation will make life unlivable for its residents, and even less appealing for people who might otherwise relocate into San Francisco and its environs. As Joffe notes. these regulations will directly suppress expansion of housing units, too. — Ed]
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