Replacing ACs with heat pumps: A backdoor way to decarbonize heating

Heat pumps are often touted as an efficient way to decarbonize home heating. But a new approach to driving their adoption is on the rise in the U.S. Over the past few months, federal energy-efficiency regulators and state and city building-code overseers have begun to promote policies aimed at encouraging people to replace their existing central air-conditioning systems with heat pumps. Although heat-pump sales already outpaced gas furnace sales last year, new research…