In this episode, Panama Bartholomy, head of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, discusses the need to decarbonize buildings, the many challenges facing the effort, and the cities and states that are making progress. You better believe we get way into heat pumps and induction stoves. Full transcript of Volts podcast featuring Panama Bartholomy, January 28, 2022(PDF version)David Roberts:Fossil-fuel combustion in buildings — mostly natural gas for space and water heating — is responsible for around 10 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. Getting to net-zero will require heating, cooling, and powering all those buildings with carbon-free energy.It’s an enormous challenge — or rather, a huge thicket of challenges. There are technical issues, political issues, public-opinion issues, and policy issues, all of which decompose into dozens of discrete issues of their own. To help me wrap my head around all of it, I’m eager to talk to Panama Bartholomy, who is, I promise, a real person and not a Dr. Seuss character. Bartholomy has been wrestling with building decarbonization for decades, at (in reverse chronological order): the Investor Confidence Project, the California legislature, the California Energy Commission, the California State Architect, and the California Conservation Corps. He’s served on a variety of boards, collaborated with various expert organizations, worked on climate issues in over 30 countries, and all kinds of other stuff, but if I tried to include it all I would never get to the conversation.Bartholomy is currently running the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a multi-sector alliance of companies, nonprofits, and government agencies working on buildings, so he’s up to date on where progress is being made (think New York and California), the biggest political impediments (think the natural gas industry), and whether heat pumps really work in cold climates (think yes, they do).Without further ado, Panama Bartholomy, welcome to Voltscast.Panama Bartholomy:  Thanks, Dave. Good to be here. Long-time listener, first-time caller.David Roberts:   Let's talk about buildings. There's so much to get into here, but I want to start with a few broad scene-setting questions. Just to orient us, tell us where buildings fall on the climate policy hierarchy of needs. What portion of the problem are our buildings?Panama Bartholomy:  Maslow's hierarchy of needs for buildings and climate, I love it. We — by which I mean the building sector — come in right about 25 to 30 percent of overall emissions nationally, and about the same globally. Depending on the state you're in and the grid mix of your electricity, it may be a little higher or lower, but we’re right about in that sweet spot of 20 to 30 percent. One of the challenges is that in this sector, unlike industry or the electricity sector or even the transportation sector, you have millions if not billions of little machines that have a lot of consumer choice. You can't just shut down a coal plant and all of a sudden get a lot of benefit. You have to involve a lot of players in this.David Roberts:   Yes, this seems like the decarbonization sector that involves the most logistics and the most high-touch human interaction. You have to think about sociology and psychology. It's a tangle.Panama Bartholomy:  It is, and that's why I appreciate you spending some time in our funny little corner of the climate world. We need a lot more attention to it. Every time somebody buys a new furnace or a gas water heater or stove, they're locking in 20 or 25 years of carbon emissions from there. So attention is one of the key things that we need on this issue.David Roberts:   In recent years there's been something of a consensus forming in carbon circles that electrification is the premier decarbonization strategy. When we look at buildings, is electrifying them the whole game? How far will electrification get us and how big is the remainder once you're done electrifying?Panama Bartholomy:  W