The Global Campaign Against Building Electrification

A new report by InfluenceMap shows how the oil & gas and utilities industries are leveraging a common fossil fuel playbook to prolong the use of fossil gas in buildings globally. The analysis includes three case studies from Australia, the European Union, and the United States to demonstrate how these industries are deploying specific narratives to block or weaken building electrification policies in these regions. The findings indicate that this strategic and coordinated campaign is risking public health and climate goals by delaying building electrification policy.

• New InfluenceMap analysis finds that concentrated advocacy by the oil & gas sector and the energy utilities industry, reliant on a common and highly nuanced playbook, is prolonging the role of fossil gas in the buildings sector. This is correlated with a stifling of building electrification policy globally, putting public health and climate goals at risk. Advocacy to lock in fossil gas in buildings runs counter to the guidance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and International Energy Agency (IEA), which identify electrification as the “dominant strategy” for decarbonizing buildings and find it to be essential to meeting global climate objectives.
• This report draws from detailed investigations conducted globally by InfluenceMap, of obstructive corporate engagement on the Victoria Gas Substitution Roadmap in Australia, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive in the European Union (EU), and subnational gas bans in the United States (US). InfluenceMap’s analysis indicates that sustained corporate advocacy in these regions has succeeded in weakening the ambition of building electrification efforts. For example, following a years-long campaign from 2021-2024 against the Gas Substitution Roadmap by members of the fossil fuel sector, including Australian Energy Producers and Australian Pipelines and Gas Association, the Victoria Government withdrew ambitious plans to transition away from fossil gas in buildings.
• As a counter to the fossil fuel industry’s obstructive advocacy, InfluenceMap identifies EDF, Iberdrola, Schneider Electric, Trane Technologies, Advanced Energy United, Clean Energy Council, Energy Efficiency Council, and Eurelectric, among others, entities that have demonstrated science-aligned positions on building electrification. These companies and industry groups, which in some cases have targeted misleading fossil fuel narratives by emphasizing the wider benefits of phasing out fossil gas in buildings, appear to be overwhelmed by the fossil fuel industry’s collaborative and strategic opposition to building electrification. This opposition appears to be successful, as climate policy in the buildings sector is currently lagging, with most world countries not meeting the ambition required to achieve 2050 net-zero targets. This includes some governments, such as the United Kingdom (UK), appearing to backtrack on recent commitments to phase out gas technologies in buildings. An increase in positive and persistent voices, therefore, is needed to counterbalance the fossil fuel industry, which appears to be deploying significant resources toward policy delay.
• InfluenceMap’s analysis suggests that the oil & gas and utilities industries are collaborating on a global scale on this policy issue and relying on a common fossil fuel playbook before nuancing their approach to achieve their objectives in each region. A comparison of membership of the most active industry associations on building electrification policy reveals overlap in membership across regions, including for major oil and gas companies. However, the extent of this overlap is difficult to determine due to lack of transparency around the membership of these associations. As such, a group of oil & gas companies appear to be driving this global pushback to fossil fuel phaseout in buildings. This conclusion echoes InfluenceMap’s December 2022 analysis of the International Gas Union’s global strategy to promote fossil gas interests across regions.
• In conjunction with this common playbook, fossil fuel industries are strategically employing geographically nuanced, misleading narratives to prevent policy action and generate public support for the prolonged role of fossil gas in the buildings sector. While the most prevalent narratives differ by region, all generally claim that a long-term dependence on fossil gas in buildings unlocks a series of positive outcomes. By contrast, the IPCC emphasizes “with high confidence” that building decarbonization offers interlinking benefits, including improvements in job creation, energy security, and public health.

• Drawing from this broader influencing strategy, companies and industry groups are employing a wide range of tactics to foster mistrust in building electrification, from meeting directly with policymakers to running ad campaigns, taking legal action, and forming front groups with benign- sounding titles. The American Gas Association has been particularly successful in spearheading an anti-electrification campaign in the US, alongside other gas industry groups and gas utilities such as the National Propane Gas Association, Sempra subsidiaries, and Dominion Energy. As of February 2025, at least 26 states have enacted preemption laws that block local governments from pursuing gas bans, and the country’s first gas ban in Berkeley, California has been overturned.
• A growing body of research is specifying the alarming public health risks of using gas-based appliances within homes, specifically in developed countries. Collectively, these studies are finding that residential gas stoves are linked to significant concentrations of various harmful pollutants and are responsible for both childhood asthma and premature deaths. The gas industry, particularly the American Gas Association, has known about these risks for decades and continues to publicly deny the direct relationship between gas stoves and negative health outcomes.