The gas stove bans are idiotic and petty to defend based on environmentalist principles. The amount of gas burned by those stoves makes roughly zero impact compared with all the other hydrocarbons we burn.
The ban of gas connections and by extension gas water heaters, gas furnaces and gas stoves is being reframed to be just gas stoves. So yes, if you cherry-pick the lowest impact item out of the list of gas appliances, the impact is low.
Exactly this. Gas stoves are the flashpoint, because at the end of the day, people generally don’t think about what type of energy their heating comes from. The gas stove is the deciding factor that determines whether or not a gas line gets hooked up to a home or not.
Most people decide on a heating source based on price, not on the stove they want. In the US, in most areas, gas is cheaper to heat a house than electricity is. The may shift as heat pumps become more popular, but historically it has been the case.
No, the gas stove bans are smart. They're not for reducing carbon pollution, they're to reduce indoor air pollution, and also the danger of having combustible gas plumbed to everyone's home. Houses explode due to gas looks with alarming frequency. Electric is simply safer.
I'm not defending the ban on gas stoves, but a much better reason to ban them is their impact on indoor air quality. Burning natural gas indoors emits all kinds of nasty stuff like carbon monoxide, nitric oxides, formaldehyde...stuff linked to all kinds of diseases from asthma to cancer.