One of the world’s largest gas industry groups appears to have quietly created a public messaging playbook to combat an “active global debate” around climate change and push back against a “potentially existential” threat to its worldwide operations, documents show.
One 2021 IGU strategy document raises concerns around the global movement to address climate change following the Paris agreement to keep global warming to well below two degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels — the threshold beyond which scientists say the world will face catastrophic damage. In a written statement, a spokesperson for the IGU reiterated many of the points laid out in the strategy documents, including describing gas as a “balancer of the power system” that will help scale renewable energy.
Latest in a long line of fossil fuel disinformation This isn't the first time the fossil fuel industry has had its internal plans to create its own narrative revealed to the public. The latest trove of internal documents from fossil fuel industry insiders represents a new phase of disinformation, one where fossil fuel companies are looking to re-frame themselves as a solution, said Harrison. In recent years, new arguments from industry have sprung up, she added, some suggesting one country couldn't take action without all countries' support, others furthering the idea that humanity should wait for new technologies to show up, such as carbon capture and storage.
The group is listed as playing a role in the creation of the internal documents alongside Shell and the Russian fossil fuel giant Gazprom, among others. And many of the communications strategies revealed in the IGU documents appear to have been replicated in public messaging from the CGA. In one Facebook and Instagram ad, the CGA touts the “efficiency” of natural gas; in another, the industry group says it’s “leveraging innovative tech to become cleaner than ever.”
In a social media feud with BC Hydro last fall, the gas utility claimed a renewable gas furnace would be cheaper to power than a heat pump. Often described by advocates as a “bridge fuel” to wean the world off coal and oil, LNG produces about half the carbon emissions at the point of combustion than coal. The B.C. government has cited that fact in its decision to back the construction of the LNG Canada terminal, a major gas processing plant in Kitimat, and a pipeline to feed it with fuel from fracked gas fields in the province’s northeast.
“That transitioning to a lower-carbon energy landscape will take a range of low-carbon energy options and practical solutions,” the FortisBC spokesperson said. The North American playbook, meanwhile, includes messaging stating Canada and the U.S. will become exporters of LNG and that gas will become more affordable than electricity as prices climb.
Unlike gasoline or oil, however, LNG can inadvertently vent into the surrounding environment without combusting. When it leaks into the atmosphere, the methane-heavy gas produces a greenhouse effect more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Russian playbook replicated after invasion A 2021 IGU document shows the industry group predicted and tried to prepare for what they describe as a “black swan event upending global political agenda” between 2022 and 2025.
These organizations, note the IGU documents, are “critically important, as they can be influential in the fuel choice that countries make.”