A significant fraction of the climate impact of gas is actually ubiquitous fugitive leaks rather than the CO2 produced, as several percent is lost somewhere between production and final combustion or while appliances are turned off. Multiplied by a greenhouse effect dozens of times as strong as the CO2 it combusts into, that builds up.
It is at least theoretically conceivable if the parameters were just right that the same gas running through fewer, shorter, larger pipes with a lot less leakage to centralized power plants driving electric heating could actually produce less impact per unit useful work (especially given that gas heat has a smaller fraction of the heat actually go into the thing being heated). I am utterly unprepared to do numbers on this though and this would be completely dependent on actual leakages and where they occur and the difference in the fraction of useful work.
A significant fraction of the climate impact of gas is actually ubiquitous fugitive leaks rather than the CO2 produced, as several percent is lost somewhere between production and final combustion or while appliances are turned off. Multiplied by a greenhouse effect dozens of times as strong as the CO2 it combusts into, that builds up.
It is at least theoretically conceivable if the parameters were just right that the same gas running through fewer, shorter, larger pipes with a lot less leakage to centralized power plants driving electric heating could actually produce less impact per unit useful work (especially given that gas heat has a smaller fraction of the heat actually go into the thing being heated). I am utterly unprepared to do numbers on this though and this would be completely dependent on actual leakages and where they occur and the difference in the fraction of useful work.