ZeroCarbonMA in the news.
We’re fighting for climate action that creates safer homes, better jobs, and a livable future. A politics that answers to local will. And the belief that strong communities can stand up to the fossil fuel and real estate industry.
Read our recent coverage.
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Two years in, what's the state of Mayor Wu's Boston?
01.14.2024 The Scope
Wu told the Globe she was given “clear indications that Boston would not be chosen for the one available spot.” “The way you put pressure on the legislation to expand the program is by actually applying,” Cunningham said. “If you don’t apply, the state legislature reads that Boston is not serious about the program.”
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7 communities get green light for fossil-fuel free building pilot
01.05.2024 WBUR
"This is a huge milestone," said Lisa Cunningham, co-founder of the ZeroCarbonMA advocacy group. "I hope it's only the beginning of a sea change in the way we think about building, not just in Massachusetts but throughout the country."
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Boston’s plan to ban fossil fuels in new buildings goes up in smoke
11.12.2023 The Boston Globe
“It’s important to note that at its heart, Boston’s application to the demonstration project is about climate justice and equity…The state’s own climate plans have repeatedly emphasized that constructing all-electric buildings at the point of new and major construction is essential.”
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Pilot allowing bans on new gas hookups is limited to 10 Mass. communities. There's 1 spot left.
09.14.2023 WBUR
"The communities that are not being allowed in are significantly less affluent, have significantly more people of color, have significantly greater health risks and poorer health outcomes," Cunningham, co-founder of ZeroCarbonMA, said. "It's simply inequitable.”
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Climate advocates and policymakers offer paths through climate crisis.
08.18.2023 WGBH
“The only way to really reduce our carbon emissions is to stop using fossil fuels immediately,” Cunningham said. “That's what the UN — the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change — has said . That's what all the experts have said, and we are just creating basically an unlivable world.”
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State must electrify new construction in every community to meet climate goals.
08.7.2023 Boston Globe OpEd
“Environmental justice communities are disproportionately at risk of experiencing the worst impacts of climate change, including extreme heat. Until every community has the opportunity to build all-electric new construction, the state will lock in health, economic, and climate disparities for decades to come.”
All electric homes are cheaper to build than fossil fuel residences.
8.5.2023 Commonwealth Magazine OpEd
“Outside the State Legislature’s doors, our air was filled with wildfire smoke from Canada and extreme heat, while record flooding wiped out farms and livelihoods in western Massachusetts. Inside, lobbyists and special interests used a flawed academic report in an attempt to undermine Massachusetts’s climate goals, creating false headlines designed to push us back decades.”
More MA cities seek to ban gas, citing lack of diversity and urgency of climate crisis.
08.15.2023 Energy News Network
“We can’t fix the climate crisis 10 communities at a time,” said Jeff Cohen, City Councilor in Salem, a designated Gateway City.
Massachusetts Considers Legislation to Ban Gas in New Buildings
07.16.2023 RTO
“Without state authorization to restrict new fossil fuel infrastructure in our city, we are completely unable to address our most significant source of emissions: our buildings,” said Etel Haxhiaj, City Councilor in Worcester, a Gateway City.
Lawmakers, advocates call for faster rollout on local fossil fuel bans.
02.23.2023 WGBH
“We know that we will need to electrify our buildings, and communities across the commonwealth deserve the right, the opportunity, to decide for themselves,” said Logan Malik, the interim ED of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network.Add your pricing strategy. Be sure to include important details like value, length of service, and why it’s unique.
Specialized Opt-in Energy Code Pushes MA Towards a More Sustainable Future
01.25.2023 Daily Free Press
Cunningham said that the climate crisis has disproportionate effects on at-risk and marginalized communities. “The oil and gas industry has perpetrated the biggest crime against humanity, possibly in the history of civilization,“ said Cunningham. “We are facing big money, well funded, well financed, dark money organizations who are entrenched in basically hiding the truth from the public.”
Massachusetts passes massive climate and clean energy bill
08.11.2022 Washington Post
Contrary to the Governor’s misimpression, the ten town provision is a pro-housing provision — construction and operational costs of all-electric buildings are on par with or lower than the costs of fossil fueled buildings,” Lisa Cunningham, architect and co-founder of ZeroCarbonMA, a local group that has been championing a fossil fuel ban policy for several years, said in a statement. “This bill ensures that multi-family housing is fossil-fuel free, and that healthy and safe buildings are accessible to ALL residents in our communities, not just wealthy residents.”
“States and cities nationwide are recognizing the equitable benefits of pollution-free homes.”
— Lisa Cunningham, Boston Globe OpEd, 2023
Ten cities in Massachusetts to ban fossil fuel hookups in new construction in pilot program
08.30.2022 WBUR Radio Boston interview
“It’s a fiscal imperative, a health imperative, a climate imperative, and it’s an imperative to protect our most vulnerable populations…we can’t meet our climate goals while continuing to build with fossil fuels” said Lisa Cunningham of ZeroCarbonMA.
Brookline wants a fossil free future d
02.25.2022 Boston Globe
“It feels like I’m a child whose parents have gone out of their way not to give me permission to clean my own room,” said Jesse Gray, one of the petitioners behind Brookline’s efforts. “We need to do this to meet the state’s own climate goals, but what they have made abundantly clear is that they are not going to allow any municipality to do this, even though it’s a basic and necessary and urgent climate step.”
MA Gas Ban Movement Gathers Support from State Lawmakers
02.03.2022 S&P Global
"The governor is misinformed in thinking that all-electric requirements will stop in its tracks any housing development," said Lisa Cunningham. "Brookline has shown that that idea couldn't be farther from the truth and reflects specious arguments taken directly from the fossil fuel and real estate lobbies."
Mass. AG strikes down second attempt to block gas use in buildings
02.25.2022 S&P Global
"It's deeply unfortunate that one of the bluest states is actively preventing its towns and cities from taking the most basic and necessary steps to address our climate crisis," said ZeroCarbonMA co-founder Jesse Gray.
New legal paths towards banning fossil fuel hookups
07.15.2021 Energy News
The movement began in 2019, when Brookline first approved, by an overwhelming majority, a bylaw prohibiting fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction or gut renovations. It was the first such municipal measure passed outside of California. Inspired by the idea, other towns began preparing similar measures.
Brookline tries again for a fossil free future. d
06.03.2021 WBUR
Brookline’s new ordinances "won’t get us where we have to go,” Cunningham said, “but it is a first step and we really need to stop making this problem worse; we need to make it better.”
Massachusetts decision highlights need for state action
07.24.2020 RMI
Despite the attorney general’s ruling, Lisa Cunningham, co-sponsor of the Brookline by-law, said that she is as invigorated as ever to fight against the climate crisis. “We have less than ten years to reduce our carbon emissions by 50 percent in order to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change,” Cunningham said. She stated that Massachusetts must stop using fossil fuels, and that Brookline’s by-law proved that building electrification is a practical and affordable step to get there.
Brookline votes to ban oil and gas pipes in new buildings
11.20.2019 Boston Globe
State Representative Tommy Vitolo, also a Town Meeting member, noted that reducing fossil fuels is vital to the state reducing emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, as required by law. “We’ve got to cut emissions dramatically, which means we have to cut emissions from our buildings,” he said. “When you’re in a hole, the first thing is to stop digging. . . . This bill simply takes away the shovel.” No one at the meeting spoke out against the measure.
Banning New Natural Gas Hookups d
12.06.2019 Living on Earth
As scientists warn that time is running out to curb greenhouse gas emissions and transition away from fossil fuels, some towns and cities are enacting bylaws to codify the use of alternatives to natural gas and oil for heating and cooking. Brookline, MA is the latest town and the first east of California to pass a bylaw banning almost all new gas piping in construction and major renovations. Architect and co-petitioner Lisa Cunningham joined Host Steve Curwood to talk about the movement to get gas out of homes.
We can’t afford to keep moving in the wrong direction.
Our aim at ZeroCarbonMA is to drive local change that scales. Our pioneering climate legislation has now influenced towns and cities across the country, including a Demonstration Program allowing 10 municipalities in Massachusetts to require fossil fuel free infrastructure in new and major construction.
We have introduced legislation to expand this program to allow waitlist and other communities to participate, sponsored by Senator Jo Comerford and Representative Lindsay Sabadosa. Denying communities the ability to reach their - and the State’s - climate targets is neither equitable or just, and compels communities to keep digging themselves into a deeper hole.
Legislative background.
Emissions from burning oil, gas and propane in our homes and commercial buildings represents 42% of Massachusetts greenhouse gas emissions. In more urban settings (Boston metro, for example), this figure can be as high as 70%. Since 2019, we’ve been crafting common sense legislation to get us moving in the right direction.
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For multifamily 3 units and above, 100% of parking spaces have to be EV ready, and the design of the regulations makes it feasible to require that. For 1-2 family, the new requirement is simply that there be one 50-A branch circuit per unit. There are two principal paths to meet that requirement: either through a prescriptive standard or a performance standard (or through a combination of the two).
To pass this MLU/AG approved legislation in your community, see this folder in our “Resources” tab.
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The Town of Brookline and petitioners, supported by ZeroCarbonMA, are appealing the Attorney General’s rejection of 2021 zoning incentives for fossil fuel free major construction.
Read the full complaint.
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On February 25, 2022, the AG rejected zoning Articles 25-26 from Brookline’s Spring 2021 Town Meeting.
Read the decision letter.
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Implements a policy similar to our original 2019 Warrant Article 21 Fossil Fuel Free (FFF) policy, but in the form of a zoning bylaw. WA 25 requires that construction in an existing overlay district be FFF in order to take advantage of the bonuses provided by the overlay. This approach could be attached to any future overlays as well. In 2022 the Attorney General disallowed this bylaw, a decision we believe was wrong and are appealing. This bylaw was in full effect in Brookline from September 2, 2021 through February 25, 2022..
See full article here.
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Extends the comprehensive process that Brookline already has for reviewing development, in which many projects require a special permit in order to go beyond the base zoning code that they are entitled to “by-right”. This warrant article would achieve much of the original policy goal of the 2019 Warrant Article 21 gas ban. Warrant Article 26 adds new criteria to the special permitting process, placing conditions on certain projects that plan to add new fossil fuel infrastructure. Warrant Article 26 is broader than Warrant Article 25, since it would apply across the whole town, as well as to major renovations (over 75% floor area renovation for residential, 50% for commercial). In 2022 the Attorney General disallowed this bylaw, a decision we believe was wrong and are appealing. Like Warrant Article 25, this bylaw was in full effect in Brookline from September 2, 2021 through February 25, 2022. 75% floor area renovation for residential, 50% for commercial). In 2022 the Attorney General disallowed this bylaw, a decision we believe was wrong and are appealing. Like Warrant Article 25, this bylaw was in full effect in Brookline from September 2, 2021 through February 25, 2022.
See full article here.
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Brookline passed a Home Rule Petition based on our original WA-21 asking the State Legislature to grant us the authority to implement our fossil fuel free bylaw. See full local Article from Town Meeting and state legislative bill. An increasing number of communities are filing their own similar Home Rule Petitions.
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“Prohibition on New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure in Major Construction” passed by a vote of 211-3 in the November 2019 Town Meeting. This bylaw would have applied to all building permits for new construction and major renovations, requiring that they be Fossil Fuel Free, with practical exemptions and a waiver process. Non-compliant projects would not have received building permits. However, the Attorney General ruled in July of 2020 that this bylaw was preempted by state utility, gas, and building code law. At the same time, she said that she supported the policy goals and suggested the petitioners use a zoning mechanism to achieve these policy goals.
See full warrant article here.