Sinja | Minx 🇨🇦⚕🌸🥭🎬📚⛸➕🛹🀄🌲🛶🏕 (@chillax-empath.bsky.social)

Vancouver Reverses Its Gas Heating Ban Again Despite Public Opposition Vancouver City Council voted Thursday to lift its ban on new residential natural gas connections, after residents successfully rallied against a similar motion in 2024. Mayor Ken Sim introduced Motion 8, the second major attempt to roll back the gas heating ban, on May 13, to wide public outcry. The motion also mandates [pdf] a review of Vancouver’s standalone building code, the Vancouver Building By-law (VBBL), and eliminates Energize Vancouver—the City program mandating emissions reporting for commercial buildings. Critics, including Stand.earth climate campaigner Sunil Singal, call it a massive rollback of Vancouver’s climate policies. “Ken Sim’s motion has now gutted Vancouver’s leadership as an innovator in the country for how to reduce pollution from buildings,” Singal told The Energy Mix. The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) condemned Vancouver City Council’s decision to pass the motion. CAPE representative Dr. Maura Brown, a Vancouver-based physician, said in an emailed statement: “This decision flies in the face of public health evidence, and doctors will be seeing the harmful consequences in our communities for decades.” Gas commonly leaks from home appliances, exposing residents to benzene, a carcinogen to which “there is no safe level of exposure.” “Renters, who make up over... https://www.theenergymix.com/vancouver-reverses-gas-heating-ban-again-despite-public-opposition/