The other reason is that it is better! You can actually get an induction stove to heat up faster than a gas stove, if it is wired properly
They're more expensive, though, and it's harder to find ones without 100% terrible touch controls (especially if you're also trying not to pay a ton of money).
If you have a cheap gas range and want an electric replacement at roughly the same price, your options are all garbage, not high-quality induction ranges.
[EDIT] Oh, they also seem to be more fragile and harder and/or more expensive to repair if they do break, making lifetime ownership cost even worse than what the up-front cost alone implies, and that's already not great.
They're more expensive, but amortized over the cost of the lifespan, it's not a big difference. And because it's more efficient, it's oftentimes going to be cheaper in the long run, depending on the relative price of gas and electricity in your area.
The touch controls issue is real, and I'm sympathetic to that because I really despise them myself. That said, there's no inherent reason that induction stoves have to use these - it's just a style choice - and I suspect as induction stoves get more widespread, if enough people prefer tactile controls, more options will become available. It's not a good enough reason to hold up local public policy that will have a measurable, positive climate impact.
If it is truly a "life or death" situation, then what you want to do is slow down and carefully evaluate your options to ensure you're not actually going to make things worse.
If California truly is the "land of unintended consequences" then why would we presume that will suddenly disappear just because we're doing the "right" thing?
The rhetoric and the actions do not match. Particularly here.
You're just taking some customers off of gas. Isn't the most obvious outcome that there will be alternative uses found and those industries will buy the glut? Shifting usage from one end of the stack to the other doesn't seem to do anything important in the face of this "life or death" scenario.
It will take a generation to upgrade every kitchen. These sort of "start the incremental change" ordinances need to happen at some point. Might as well start now.
Burning gas at a power plant to generate electricity is still much more efficient than burning gas at home generate heat for cooking.
Or: When you purchase that EV, what are you doing with your previous car?
2 different perspectives, both require new stock to enter the market. That new stock should be EV.
Even charging an EV from a gas-fired power plant is still more efficient than burning gasoline in an ICE. Yes, even with transmission losses and charging losses. Burning gasoline in a small engine is wildly inefficient compared to utility-scale turbines burning natural gas. Hybrids have done a fantastic job in basically doubling this efficiency, but they're still no match for grid energy.
My grid averages about 233kg CO₂ per MWh delivered.
If I had an EV, and I charged it with 3,600kWh each year (12k miles), my annual CO₂ emissions would be around 900kg. Half of this is from gas plants. If I toss some panels on my roof, then the yearly emissions way down.
A new Prius driving the same amount is around 2,100kg.
So the argument comes down to the embodied carbon in the supply chain. The carbon released for EV manufacturing is about double that for a gas-only car. (I don't know where hybrids land on this, probably closer to gas than EV with their small batteries?)
But the operational emissions dwarf the manufacturing and disposal emissions. Cars last a really long time these days.
There are some regions (coal) where an EV will tie with a hybrid for net emissions. That's the worst case, a tie. But only one of those will automatically take advantage of grid improvements, more solar, etc.
Existing infrastructure is emitting CO₂. The stuff we replace it with won't. The gas pipes that are shut off will no longer leak methane.
The next century will be dominated by how we deal with the last century's monumental carbon emissions. We went from 300 to 400 ppm by burning immense amounts of fossil fuels. To go from 400 back to 300 will take a bit of effort. No single policy—in isolation—will "reverse climate change". But all of them will.
CH4 is the larger concern with natural gas
This paper explains it:
It's probably so insignificant that it's purely a point for virtue signaling. I've had a gas stove for years and I still haven't needed to refill the tank, and it's not even that big of a tank. Shipping your new induction stove will probably use more gas than you will in a decade of cooking.
Induction stoves can't be used for things like Woks since you need the heat to come up to the sides of the wok, not just in the part that touches the stove. Many other cuisines need gas stoves to properly work.
The amount of greenhouse gas emissions due to heating is not insignificant.
While in general, heat is heat, and hot water is hot water, disallowing gas hookups means no more gas stoves, which a lot of people and chefs have strong attachments to. Hence the focus.
If we're not doing anything to eliminate the military industrial complex, we're not serious about climate change, either.