Climate Impacts
One single home might not seem like such a big deal, but when you add them all up, the impact is massive.
How massive? British Columbia’s natural-gas homes together contribute the same amount of climate pollution each year as:
- More than 870,000 vehicles.
- One car, driven around the equator more than 400,000 times.
- Nearly eight million round-trip flights between Vancouver and Toronto.
Heating a typical single-family British Columbia home entirely with natural gas can emit 4.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) each year.
That’s about the same climate impact as driving a gasoline vehicle 19,574 kilometres—three times the driving distance between Vancouver and Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Meanwhile, a recent Stanford University study found that natural gas stoves emit carbon pollution even when they are turned off.
In other words, when we heat or cook with natural gas, we push our province’s climate goals further out of reach.