Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg has unveiled a piece of his climate plan that would boost the energy efficiency of buildings, which are responsible for 12 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Bloomberg, a former mayor of New York City, has vowed to cut the country’s emissions by 50 percent by 2030. He said he would slash the use of fossil fuels, including natural gas, for cooking, heat and hot water by promoting pollution-freeappliances and zero-carbon furnaces through a combination of federal incentives and standards, including a “Bucks for Boilers” program.

By 2025, all new buildings would be required to meet zero-carbon emissions on site, so that they would be powered by electric utilities using increasing amounts of renewable sources.

“Gas isn’t as clean as we thought. It’s a much bigger problem than we anticipated,” Bloomberg said in an email. “Gas is now a bigger source of climate pollution than coal, and emissions from gas are growing. For those reasons, my clean energy plan calls for replacing all U.S. coal plants, replacing existing gas plants, and stopping the construction of new gas plants as well.”

“We don’t exactly ban the use of gas, but we are looking to set building codes, help them get adopted locally, and offer incentives for pollution-free appliances to get gas out of as many homes and buildings as we can,” he said.

Buildings are a major source of pollution, said Antha N. Williams, the Bloomberg campaign’s senior adviser on climate, energy and environment. She said that if all the buildings in the United States were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.

The Energy Information Administration says that 8.5 trillion cubic feet, or 29 percent, of all natural gas used in the United States is burned at residential and commercial buildings.

The latest piece of the Bloomberg climate policy comes as climate change has become a controversial portion of the campaigns of other candidates.

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