Australia's LNG industry faces scrutiny over climate impact claims

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Climate Change,Lng,Coal

A recent US study challenges the assertion that liquefied natural gas (LNG) has significantly lower emissions than coal, raising questions about the environmental claims made by Australia's thriving LNG industry.

‘Guardian Australia has asked industry leaders and MPs for specific evidence … that LNG has substantially lower emissions than coal across its lifecycle.’‘Guardian Australia has asked industry leaders and MPs for specific evidence … that LNG has substantially lower emissions than coal across its lifecycle.’A US study estimates the total climate pollution from LNG was 33% greater than that from coal over a 20-year period.

This sort of income is a pretty powerful incentive to justify what your industry does, especially when what it does leads to accusations it is damaging the planet and people’s lives and livelihoods. The Australian gas industry has excelled in asserting that it is helping in the fight against the climate crisis.

A key finding of Howarth’s study is that more gas leaks into the atmosphere before it is burned than is usually assumed. This has been successfully spun over decades as “natural gas”, which sounds harmless. In reality it is methane – a short-lived but potent fossil fuel that has about 80 times the atmospheric heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.

But the clear overarching message from the study is bigger than site-specific variation. As Prof Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University, told my colleague Oliver Milman, the issue isn’t really whether gas is slightly better or worse than coal. It’s that These domestic issues need to be addressed, but should be treated as a separate discussion to the export industry, which has a much more significant climate impact and is largely treated as though it is not Australia’s responsibility.

 

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