Cathy Collentine
Back in January, the Biden-Harris administration made a bold decision to pause the consideration of new applications to export liquified methane gas, or LNG. The Department of Energy’s criteria to determine whether or not an application is in the public interest is woefully out of date. This pause was put in place in order to allow time to update the underlying studies used for that determination. This badly needed update is critical in order to adequately evaluate these massive proposed export facilities, the construction and operation of which threaten the health and safety of communities, raise domestic gas prices for consumers, and pollute an already warming climate.
LNG is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the studies that DOE has up-to-now relied on to make its Public Interest Determination do not adequately reflect the lifecycle emissions from exports, the social cost of those emissions, nor an accurate comparison of what LNG is competing against. The studies also do not accurately reflect the latest science on methane leak rates at every lifecycle stage, including end use, and thus underestimate the pollution caused by LNG. In March Nature published a study that concluded from one million aerial site measurements that actual methane leaks are three times as high as the official national inventory estimate.
DOE’s outdated studies incorrectly compare the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of US LNG to those of other fossil fuels, like coal or oil, but this is the wrong benchmark. Instead, DOE’s analysis should compare the full lifecycle emissions of US LNG against the renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions that US LNG exports are competing against in a world transitioning to cleaner energy sources.
In fact, renewables and storage are already more economically competitive than LNG in many US export markets, including Germany, Pakistan, and Vietnam. This is important to take into consideration today and into the future. The transition to renewable energy will only accelerate exponentially toward 2050, but when DOE authorizes exports, they authorize them all the way to 2050, decades over which LNG exports could pollute and thwart climate progress. In other markets, like Europe and Asia, continuing to expand LNG exports could undercut the competitiveness of renewables and storage, further undermining global climate commitments.
We can not afford to participate in a delay in the adoption of renewable energy, here or around the world.
The scientific community has known for a long time that the extraction and burning of dirty fossil fuels- like coal, oil, and methane gas - contribute to climate change and harm public health. The speed and urgency at which that transition must happen has come into clearer focus in recent years as the scientific community has reached consensus on the real world consequences of our continued reliance on fossil fuels.
A recent timeline of this growing consensus:
- May 2021: The International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, a first of its kind report that finds fossil fuel use falls drastically in the Net‐Zero Emissions Scenario (NZE) by 2050, and no new oil and gas fields or coal mines are required beyond those that have already been approved for development.
- April 2022: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes new portions of its Sixth Assessment Report finding operating even the existing fossil fuel infrastructure puts 1.5°C out of reach.
- May 2022: Researchers publish a peer-reviewed study finding that staying within a 1.5 °C carbon budget implies leaving almost 40% of 'developed reserves' of fossil fuels in the ground.
- October 2022: The International Institute for Sustainable Development finds that according to a large consensus across multiple modeled climate and energy pathways, developing any new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C.
- August 2023: Researchers provide an update to the May 2022 study that finds staying within a 1.5°C carbon budget now implies leaving almost 60% of 'developed reserves' of fossil fuels in the ground.
- September 2023: IEA updates its May 2021 Net Zero Emissions by 2050 study and reiterates that no new oil and gas fields or coal mines are needed given required declines in fossil fuel demand.
- October 2023: IEA releases the 2023 World Energy Outlook (WEO) finding that demand for fossil fuels globally is set to remain far too high to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5 °C.
- November 2023: A group of international research organizations publish the Production Gap Report 2023 finding governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. The persistence of the global production gap puts a well-managed and equitable energy transition at risk. This report has shared a similar message since it was first published in 2019.
- December 2023: At the end of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP 28), parties agree to a landmark agreement that calls for a transition away from fossil fuels. However, just days earlier, a draft Global Stocktake (GST) was released that included no mention of fossil fuel phaseout. The ability of advocates to turn the tide of this agreement in only a few days and overcome fossil fuels interests urging to "proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy, ie fossil fuels, rather than emissions." is remarkable, and it speaks to the power of the growing consensus around the need for the transition off of fossil fuels.
Despite the line being drawn since before 2021 that we cannot develop new fossil fuels, in 2021 global coal and gas production set record highs, with oil not far off its peak, and levels have remained high since. This is only a recent timeline, with many sounding the alarm on these undeniable facts long before 2021. The history of this consensus on the need to transition off of fossil fuels if we want to protect our communities and climate will only become longer and longer.
US LNG exports can not be a part of this timeline going forward if we are to avert the worst of the climate disaster. DOE’s assessment should include an analysis of the climate impacts on the US and other countries from the increased emissions associated with an LNG expansion and how an expansion fits within the climate constraints of a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway. If DOE gets the update of its studies right, it will be obvious that LNG exports are not in the public interest for a variety of economic, public health, and climate reasons.
Find out how you can take action here: sc.org/lng