Health care professionals in Washington State: Please sign your name onto a letter urging the State Building Code Council to advance the state energy code to align with climate goals and require clean, electric heat pump technology in new commercial buildings. Full letter is below. Reach out to Mark Vossler with any questions:
mark@wpsr.org. Thank you!
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Dear Chair Klein members of the State Building Codes Council,
On behalf of healthcare professionals across Washington State, we urge you to require the use of efficient electric heat pumps for space and water heating in new commercial and large multifamily buildings. Doing so is critical to protect public health especially in Washington’s most vulnerable communities.
Electric heat pumps are necessary to achieve Washington’s climate commitments and mitigate related health impacts.
Over 200 of the world’s leading medical journals made history this fall in an unprecedented joint statement urging world leaders to cut heat-trapping emissions to avoid "catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse."
In Washington, gas appliances are driving the building sector’s position as the fastest growing source of carbon emissions in the state which currently produces about 26 percent of our total climate pollution. According to the 2021 Washington State Energy Strategy, the lowest cost pathway for achieving our state’s commitment to 95 percent carbon reductions economy-wide by 2050 relies on electrifying our buildings. Thanks to our abundance of clean, low-cost electricity, swapping out gas appliances with electric ones would reduce the average Washington households climate footprint by 50%. As a much more energy efficient alternative to their fossil fuel counterparts, electric heat pumps are a necessary first step.
If we do not use this moment to make real progress towards energy efficient targets by 2031, climate-related health impacts will only continue to worsen. Our patients are heat-stressed, experiencing pulmonary disease from wildfire smoke and air pollution, and are often in physical danger from failing gas infrastructure or encroaching sea levels and climate-related drought/flood cycles. As physicians working to prevent what we cannot cure, we concur with the global medical community in naming climate change as the greatest threat to public health in the 21st century. Further, we agree with the New England Journal of Medicine:
“Natural gas has been portrayed as a bridge to the future. The data now show that it is only a tether to the past.”
- PJ Landrigan, H Frumkin, B. Lundberg, (2020) “The False Promise of Natural Gas” in the New England Journal of Medicine
Gas appliances pollute indoor air and lead to dire adverse health outcomes
Homes and buildings are now the largest source of toxic air pollution in the U.S. - linked to a greater number of premature deaths in 2018 than either the power or transportation sectors. Gas burned in space and water heaters emits fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the indoor environment that impede lung function, cause respiratory damage and asthma symptoms, and lead to cardiovascular illnesses. In Washington, the building sector accounts for an estimated 579 of the 848 estimated annual total premature deaths from air pollution across all source sectors, or 68% of the total – nearly three times the share of estimated premature deaths (201) due to road transportation sector air pollution in Washington. This data includes emissions from gas and wood smoke (20% of the total). Additionally, children are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of indoor air pollution from gas appliances. Children growing up in homes reliant on gas experience a 42 percent higher risk of developing asthma symptoms and a 24 percent higher lifetime risk of an asthma diagnosis.
Space and water heaters powered with gas have also been linked to increased instances of carbon monoxide poisoning. Two separate case studies in South Australia and India traced fatal carbon monoxide exposures among two separate victims to emissions from their gas space and water heaters. Further analysis reveals that in both cases the gas heaters in the victims homes contributed to 96.6% of carbon monoxide emissions. Especially in times of structural failure, gas appliances can be potentially fatal, particularly to the young, elderly, and immunocompromised.
Low-income and historically marginalized communities face an even greater risk. Inadequate ventilation and smaller living spaces contribute to higher concentrations of pollutants in lower income multifamily buildings (79 Adamkiewicz et al). A study of public housing apartments showed improved health outcomes in residents who moved from conventional apartments to those with electric heating and cooking, correlated with reductions in PM 2.5 and NO2.
Gas appliances contribute to outdoor air pollution and related disproportionate health outcomes.
Commercial building electrification can also reduce public health costs incurred from outdoor air pollution. According to a recent Harvard study, burning fossil fuels in commercial buildings caused $110 million in health impacts in 2017. This is a conservative estimate because it only includes health impacts from outdoor PM2.5 and precursor pollution; it also does not include pollution from upstream extraction. These air quality impacts disproportionately affect low-income and Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. The proposed changes to the code would have the benefit of dramatically reducing new contributions to this health, economic and racial justice issue.
Please move to protect community health by requiring the use of heat pumps in new commercial and large multifamily buildings.
Fossil gas in buildings poses serious risks to our health and our communities and runs counter to our climate commitments as a state. Electrifying building appliances will help ensure a safe and prosperous future and we thank you for your leadership in this effort.
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