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This week in buildings, land and industry decarbonization news, NetZero Insidercovered the Biden administration’s release of a blueprint on how the country could eliminate emissions from its building stock — currently 130 million buildings, with another 40 million homes and 60 billion square feet of commercial floorspace expected by mid-century. Most of the work described in the blueprint would happen long after President Joe Biden leaves office, even if he wins reelection.
Our K Kaufmann wrote a story about how the District of Columbia’s budget woes are making its own building decarbonization efforts more difficult. The City Council has approved a bill to electrify 30,000 low-income homes by 2040, but a slow economic rebound from the pandemic and the end of some federal funding has lawmakers considering delaying some of the legislation’s goals.
In other news, Sacramento, Calif., plans to keep enforcing a policy its ban on new natural gas hook-ups for now even though Berkeley, Calif., abandoned its own ban after losing a federal court challenge. Like its fellow Northern California municipality, Sacramento falls under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where the policy was adjudicated.
Architectural Record has an overview on cities’ electrification efforts. Several of the experts interviewed argued that while the gas industry will keep fighting decarbonization policies, litigation is likely to be “more of a speed bump than a blockade” in the long run.
TheNew York Times decided the World Resources Institute’s update on efforts to preserve forests was fit to print. It found that wildfires and the growth in agricultural land outweighed preservation efforts in 2023, suggesting the world is not on course to stop forest loss by 2030, a commitment made by 145 nations during climate talks in Glasgow in 2021. The Institute’s annual report found that 9.1 million acres of forest was destroyed in 2023 — an area equivalent to the territory of Switzerland —about 9% less than in 2022.
In other land-use news, The Cool Down has a story about a rancher who has kept his operation running thanks to wind farm lease payments. The case shows renewable development and agriculture do not have to be at loggerheads.
There’s more in our Intelligence Report this week:
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