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liquefied natural gas
As Biden Adviser Speaks at COP29, Green Groups Say Act Before Trump Takeover
"President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
Nov 11, 2024
As the U.S. senior adviser to the president for international climate policy addressed the United Nations summit in Azerbaijan on Monday, green groups urged the outgoing Democratic administration to do whatever it can to tackle the global crisis before Republicans seize control of the White House and likely both chambers of Congress.
"I want to address tonight a topic that is on everyone's mind—the U.S. election," John Podesta, President Joe Biden's adviser, told the crowd in Baku on the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29), less than a week after President-elect Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although votes are still being counted, Republicans have secured a majority in the U.S. Senate and are on track to retain control of the House of Representatives—paving the way for Trump's plans to roll back the Biden-Harris administration's progress on the climate emergency and "drill, baby, drill," which would lead to a surge in planet-heating pollution.
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome."
"For those of us dedicated to climate action, last week's outcome in the United States is obviously bitterly disappointing," Podesta acknowledged, "particularly because of the unprecedented resources and ambition President Biden and Vice President Harris brought to the climate fight."
Noting that Biden pledged to halve emissions this decade, rejoined the Paris agreement, signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and promised $11 billion in international climate funds, Podesta warned that "the next administration will try to take a U-turn and reverse much of this progress."
"As President Biden said in the Rose Garden last week, setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable. This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science," he continued. "This fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle, in one country. This fight is bigger still."
"We can and will make real progress on the backs of our climate-committed states and cities, our innovators, our companies, and our citizens, especially young people, who understand more than most that climate change poses an existential threat that we cannot afford to ignore," he added. "Failure or apathy is simply not an option."
Responding to the envoy's remarks in a Monday statement, Collin Rees, United States program manager at Oil Change International, said that "if John Podesta and President Joe Biden are committed to doing everything possible to continue climate progress despite Donald Trump's reelection, this moment demands a bold agenda that goes beyond locking in clean energy gains and takes real action toward a just transition off fossil fuels."
"There is no shortage of critical work to be done before Biden leaves office," Rees argued. "Here at COP29, the United States must support a new, transformative global finance goal in which rich countries pay their fair share in high-quality, grant-based finance and work to submit a Paris-aligned nationally determined contribution committing to do its fair share of climate action and phase out fossil fuels."
In the United States, Rees argued, Biden must "finalize studies on the dangerous impacts" of new liquefied natural gas exports, "reject deadly projects like the Dakota Access oil pipeline and pending LNG facilities in the Gulf South," and urge Congress to block the latest attempt by outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) "to destroy bedrock environmental protections."
Looking toward next week's Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting, Rees said that "Biden's administration must support a global agreement to end export credit finance for oil and gas projects, a process which could end tens of billions of dollars in international finance for fossil fuels every year. This agreement would limit the global climate damages Trump and his fossil fuel cronies are able to perpetrate."
"Podesta's speech must be followed by swift action to limit U.S. fossil fuel expansion and achieve a strong COP29 outcome," he stressed. Leaders at other climate organizations—who have often argued that Biden hasn't gone far enough to tackle the fossil fuel-driven crisis—issued similar demands on Monday.
Emphasizing that "climate diplomacy on a boiling planet doesn't stop for a climate denier," Ben Goloff, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, called on Biden officials to "use the next two months to set up a bulwark of protections and secure their climate legacy."
"Beyond urgently getting IRA money out the door, John Podesta must commit the U.S.'s fair share of global climate finance and announce an ambitious NDC climate target," Goloff said, referring to nationally determined contributions for the Paris agreement.
Biden, he added, "has to make good on last year's agreement to transition away from fossil fuels by rejecting pending mega-polluting project," and "should also act quickly to fill all federal judicial vacancies as a wall of defense to Trump's rampage of legal attacks."
Jamie Minden, acting executive director of the youth-led movement Zero Hour, also declared that "before Trump takes office, President Joe Biden must reject all pending LNG export permits and stop the expansion of fossil fuels."
"Our climate is on the brink of collapse, and it is sheer madness that politicians continue to expand and subsidize deadly fossil fuels," Minden said. "Young people are fighting for our planet because we are facing the worst consequences of the unrelenting greed of these selfish politicians."
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Advocates Urge Biden to 'Secure His Climate Legacy' by Acting on LNG Before Trump Takes Office
"The clock is ticking—for the Biden administration and our planet," one campaigner asserted.
Nov 07, 2024
With just 75 days left before climate-denying Republican President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House to pursue his "Drill, Baby, Drill" energy agenda, clean energy advocates in the United States on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to take "bold action" to move toward a fossil fuel phaseout and a sustainable future for the world's people and the planet they all share.
"Although millions of Americans voted to reject Trump's dangerous agenda, we face another four years of a Trump presidency," said Oil Change International executive director Elizabeth Bast. "Trump has promised to double down on oil and gas production, accelerating climate catastrophe while continuing to enable violence against vulnerable communities—from environmental defenders to Palestinians facing genocide. His policies will compound environmental racism and human rights abuses, with Black, Brown, Indigenous, and frontline communities in the U.S. and around the world bearing the heaviest burden."
"Movements for change have won important victories under the toughest conditions," Bast added. "It would take more than a Trump presidency to change that. Every pipeline, every fossil fuel export terminal, and every fracking well we can stop matters."
To that end, Oil Change International U.S. program manager Collin Rees asserted that "in his final months in office, President Biden has the opportunity to secure his climate legacy by taking bold action to phase out fossil fuels and protect our climate and communities."
"We are calling on Biden to immediately end fossil fuel expansion, make permanent his January pause on new [liquefied natural gas] exports, shut down the disastrous Dakota Access Pipeline, and fulfill the U.S.' commitment to stop financing international fossil fuel projects," he continued.
Looking forward to this month's United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29)—which is set to begin next week in Baku, the capital of petrostate Azerbaijan—Rees said that "Biden must seize his final moment at COP29 in Azerbaijan this November to cement real climate action before Trump takes office."
"After pledging to move away from fossil fuels at COP28, Biden needs to deliver by championing a bold new $1 trillion annual climate finance package and putting forth a plan for a fast, fair, forever, funded, fossil fuel phaseout," he argued. "This funding will transform last year's fossil fuel promises into genuine support for adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage—but only if Biden acts now."
"The clock is ticking—for the Biden administration and our planet," Rees stressed. "What Biden does now will determine whether he'll be remembered as the leader who did his utmost to limit the Trump administration's damage and keep the world from hurtling towards climate chaos."
Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media echoed the demand, calling on Biden to "make a mountain of progress for Trump to try to undo."
Bloombergreported Thursday that the Biden administration is "racing" to complete a study examining the climate, economic, and national security implications of increased LNG exports. While Trump has vowed to end Biden's LNG export pause on his first day in office, any adverse findings in the study could be used to launch legal challenges to the new administration's project approvals.
Despite campaign promises to take bold climate action—including by banning new fossil fuel drilling on public lands—Biden oversaw the approval of more new permits for drilling on public land during his first two years in office than Trump did in 2017 and 2018.
During Biden's tenure, the United States became the
world's leading LNG exporter. The president has overseen what climate defenders have called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, and more than a dozen other projects that, if all completed, would make U.S. exported LNG emissions higher than the European Union's combined greenhouse gas footprint.
The Biden administration has also held fossil fuel lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and has approved the highly controversial Willow project and Mountain Valley Pipelinedespite warnings from climate scientists that continued fossil fuel extraction has no place on a pathway to limiting planetary heating and meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement.
On a positive note, the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law by Biden contains unprecedented investments in the clean energy sector, including solar, wind, and battery storage.
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Cornell Study Shows LNG Worse for Climate Than Coal
"LNG is not a bridge fuel to clean energy," said one expert. "It's a highway to climate hell."
Oct 03, 2024
On the heels of Hurricane Helene devastating the U.S. Southeast and sparking fresh calls for action on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, a long-awaited study revealed Thursday that the planet-heating pollution from liquefied natural gas is worse than that of coal.
"Liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the United States have risen dramatically since the LNG-export ban was lifted in 2016, and the United States is now the world's largest exporter," wrote Cornell University scientist Robert Howarth, who analyzed the greenhouse gas footprint of LNG produced in and exported from the U.S.
Howarth found that "the greenhouse gas footprint for LNG as a fuel source is 33% greater than that for coal" in terms of its 20-year global warming potential, and "even considered on the time frame of 100 years after emission... which severely understates the climatic damage of methane, the LNG footprint equals or exceeds that of coal."
Advocates of bold climate action welcomed the formal publication of what Third Act founder Bill McKibbencalled a "crucial paper."
"LNG exports present HUGE risks to our planet and climate—and we need to reject any attempts to expand them!"
The study, published online by the journal Energy Science & Engineering, follows U.S. President Joe Biden pausing approvals for all LNG exports to non-fair trade agreement countries and comes a month out from the presidential election, in which Democratic Vice President Kalama Harris is facing Big Oil-backed Republican former President Donald Trump.
"This is a HUGE deal for the Biden administration's ongoing review of LNG exports," said Jamie Henn, executive director of Fossil Free Media and a founder of 350.org, sharing Howarth's findings on social media. Climate campaigners are calling on the Biden-Harris administration to make the January pause permanent.
"This should be the final nail in the coffin for the false narrative that LNG was somehow a climate solution," Henn added in a statement. "This now peer-reviewed paper demonstrates that LNG is worse for the climate than coal, let alone clean energy alternatives. Approving more LNG exports is clearly incompatible with the public interest."
As Henn and others acknowledged, Howarth's research has been targeted by journalists and the fossil fuel industry.
"This paper has been widely discussed, revised, and is now peer-reviewed and published," said Jason Rylander, legal director for the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute. "LNG is not a bridge fuel to clean energy. It's a highway to climate hell."
Alex Walker, climate finance program manager at the Canadian group Environmental Defense, also responded to the research by stressing that, contrary to claims by the fossil fuel industry and its political allies, "LNG is not a bridge fuel."
Congressman Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said on social media that "there is no environmental case for increased U.S. LNG exports."
Howarth is on the board of directors of the Food & Water Watch, which similarly pointed to the paper as further proof that "LNG exports present HUGE risks to our planet and climate—and we need to reject any attempts to expand them!"
Cassidy DiPaola, communications director at Fossil Free Media, declared Thursday that "the science is clear."
"There's no place for LNG in a clean energy future," DiPaola said. "It's time to double down on truly clean alternatives like wind, solar, and energy efficiency."
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