Sydney’s city council has voted unanimously to ban gas appliances from all new residential buildings, effective January 1, 2026 C.E. The motion, passed at Monday night’s City of Sydney council meeting, will require all new apartments and houses in the local government area to be fitted exclusively with electric cooking and heating appliances. A further proposal would extend the ban to new offices, hotels, and serviced apartments by 2027 C.E.
At a glance
- Gas appliance ban: All new homes built in the City of Sydney from January 2026 C.E. must use electric appliances only — no gas cooking, heating, or hot water systems permitted.
- Household savings: Councillors say the switch to electric appliances could save households up to $626 per year on energy bills.
- Indoor air quality: Research on gas cooking in Melbourne found nitrogen dioxide levels inside kitchens climbed to five times the Australian outdoor air quality standard within 30 minutes of use.
Why cities are moving away from gas
Gas was once marketed as a cleaner, practical choice for homes. That case has become harder to defend. Gas prices are volatile, the climate math has grown more urgent, and a growing body of research has documented what gas appliances do to the air people breathe inside their own homes.
Greens councillor Matthew Thompson, who championed the motion, compared cooking with gas in an enclosed kitchen to smoking in a room with your child. That may sound stark, but the science backs the concern. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences links indoor nitrogen dioxide exposure to increased rates of asthma and respiratory illness, particularly in children. Removing gas from new homes eliminates that exposure source entirely.
The financial case is equally direct. Electric heat pumps — the most common replacement for gas heating — move heat rather than generate it, making them significantly more efficient. Over the lifespan of a building, that efficiency gap translates into meaningful savings for owners and tenants alike.
Sydney joins a growing Australian movement
The City of Sydney is the seventh council in New South Wales to ban indoor gas appliances in new residential builds. Hornsby Shire, Lane Cove, the City of Newcastle, Waverley, the City of Parramatta, and the City of Canada Bay have all adopted similar measures in recent years.
Globally, the direction is consistent. New York City, Amsterdam, and dozens of cities across California have introduced gas bans or phase-outs for new construction. The International Energy Agency has identified building electrification as one of the highest-impact levers for reducing emissions in urban areas. And as renewables now make up nearly half of global power capacity, the electricity flowing into these all-electric homes is getting cleaner every year.
What makes Sydney’s action significant is scale. This is Australia’s most populous city, and the unanimous council vote sends a strong market signal to developers, investors, and utilities: electricity is the built environment’s future in New South Wales.
What the ban doesn’t cover — yet
The policy applies to new construction only. The vast majority of Sydney’s existing homes still run on gas, and transitioning that stock will require separate, more complex policy mechanisms that no council has yet fully resolved.
There is also the question of state-level authority. In 2023 C.E., NSW Premier Chris Minns rejected a state-wide ban on new gas connections, and the state government retains the power to override council decisions. That tension between local ambition and state policy remains unresolved.
What this vote does is make the starting line for new construction clear. New homes in Sydney, from 2026 C.E. forward, will be built for an electric future — saving money, improving air quality, and contributing to a grid that grows cleaner year by year. Sydney’s net-zero 2035 C.E. target gets a meaningful structural foundation with every new electric home that goes up.
Other Australian cities are watching. According to the ABC, momentum behind council-level gas bans has been building steadily across the country, with more local governments expected to follow Sydney’s lead in the coming years.
Read more
For more on this story, see: 7NEWS Australia
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up nearly half of global power capacity
- Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
- The Good News for Humankind archive on clean energy
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