Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Archives

September 13, 2024

Scientists urge US officials to reject LNG export expansion

By Dana Drugmand

More than 125 scientists have issued a stern warning to US officials over a rapid expansion of natural gas production, saying the moves threaten to exacerbate the climate crisis and risk further environmental and public health harms.

The scientists delivered their message in a September 12 letter addressed to US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, pushing back against industry claims that expanding natural gas production and consumption is compatible with US and international climate goals.

The concerns from the scientific community come as the US Department of Energy prepares to update an evaluation of liquified natural gas (LNG) export approvals, and as the Treasury Department reviews the climate impacts of various forms of hydrogen production, including production from fossil gas, as it determines tax credit values. The Biden administration paused new LNG export approvals earlier this year to further evaluate their climate impacts.

“The stakes could not be higher,” the scientists wrote. “The choices that you make relating to modeling assumptions for the heat-trapping potential of natural gas will determine if the federal government will make decisions based on climate science or wishful thinking. The science is clear… that the continued use of gas at current global levels will add to global warming and climate damages.”

The letter follows the July release of a study by two groups advocating for natural gas that concluded 2022 global greenhouse gas emissions would have been much higher without US LNG exports. That study did not look at emissions reductions that could have been achieved with a shift to renewable energy or other lower carbon alternatives, however.

In the scientists’ letter to US officials, the group said the fossil fuel industry was falsely asserting that an expansion of natural gas production and consumption is consistent with climate goals. The industry is “advocating for flawed modeling assumptions that would hide the true climate impact of gas,” the scientists wrote, calling it “imperative” for the government to reject the industry.

“Trying to prove whether US gas is better or worse for the climate than other fossil fuels is like debating whether the water in the Titanic’s swimming pool is the right temperature. It misses the bigger point, which is that increasing supplies of fossil fuels from anywhere will undermine global progress toward science based climate goals,” the letter states.

In response to the letter from scientists, Hinson Peters, a spokesperson for the Natural Natural Gas Supply Association and Center for LNG, said US LNG exports “remain a vital tool for countries looking to replace dirtier fuels, increase renewable energy deployments, and strengthen their energy security.”

May 29, 2024

Postcard from California: Are corporate “climate offsets” just greenwashing?

By Bill Walker

Apple touts the newest model of the Apple Watch as its first “carbon neutral” product – made with “100% clean energy” and “recycled and renewable materials” and shipped by “lower-carbon modes” instead of by air. But a close look at the watch’s environmental specs shows that reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in its manufacturing and supply chain only goes so far.

More than one-fifth of the claimed savings in emissions are attributed to Apple’s purchase of so-called climate offsets, including shares in a project to plant eucalyptus timber plantations in eastern Paraguay, far from its Silicon Valley headquarters or its factories in China.

The project’s backers say the climate offsets it is buying reflect a reduction in eastern Paraguay’s emissions from cattle ranching, a leading source of planet-heating methane. But human rights groups say the scheme is driving peasant farmers from their land for little actual climate gain as most of the newly planted trees will be harvested quickly for consumer products.

Apple is but one of many corporate giants that has pledged to cut its company-wide emissions to “net zero” by 2030, joined by Google, Disney, Netflix and many more brands.

Even ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and Chevron – the multinational oil companies that are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the last decade – say they will be net zero by 2050.

According to the nonprofit Net Zero Tracker, more than 1,000 of the world’s largest companies have publicly declared goals of net zero by midcentury or before.

To get there, most plan to claim their purchases of climate offsets, also known as carbon credits, as emissions reductions. Through exchanges called verifiers or certifiers, companies buy, sell and trade shares in schemes that promise to reduce emissions, supposedly offsetting the climate pollution the companies can’t, or won’t, eliminate from their own operations.