LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS (LNG) LOVES GREENWASHING
07.04.2025
⬆️ A UN International Maritime Organisation delegate stops sipping wine and eating canapés to inspect a poster pasted to the outside of the drinks reception.
This evening, as UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO) delegates and Member States were eating canapés and sipping wine, a lurky ‘Scrubby the greenwashing Sponge’ appeared at the window of the IMO.
Scrubby had scaled the ‘Memorial to Seafarers’ and lifted itself all the way to the first storey of the IMO. In its hands it held a poster containing the graphic message ‘LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS ❤️ GREENWASHING’.
⬆️ What’s that lurky green apparition appearing at the window? Don’t choke on your canapé, it’s only Scrubby! It just wants to share its love for greenwashing.
Scrubby scales new heights to get its message across. ⬇️
The fate of the Ocean depends on us all.
Our interventions depend on your support.
Scrubby pasted the poster onto the window, giving everyone inside the chance to applaud its wonderful skills. It then scrambled down to the ground to pick up another poster.
The pasting Scrubby puppet was hoping its blatant greenwashing will help SEA LNG members secure a free pass for LNG. Allowing LNG to avoid any IMO MEPC plans to include it in shipping pollution regulations – making LNG the go to fossil fuel for shipping (while still accelerating dangerous emissions and obscene profits for the fossil fuel and shipping industries).
⬆️ Among the hubbub of the room a delegate is worried about a MAGA hat, are the barbarians at the door?
Meanwhile protestors, joined by a life size Mr Punch, unfurled a banner. ⬇️
Scrubby was making its second visit of the day having already starred in a ‘Punch and Scrubby Show’ in the morning. The greenwashing sponge was keen to make sure its ‘The Future of Shipping’ message on behalf of SEALNG.ORG was seen by all IMO Delegates and Member States. After all it didn’t want its employers, the fossil fuel and shipping industries, to miss out on a chance to greenwash LNG ahead of the MEPC discussions on shipping fuel levies (which companies like Exxon Mobil and Maersk hope LNG can avoid by selling itself as the ‘green’ fuel it isn’t).
⬆️ The poster complimented the planting.
The performance celebrates the rampant puppetry at large in MEPC meetings. Meetings dominated by the interests of the shipping industry, an industry which is intent on continuing its ties with the fossil fuel industry by adopting dirty LNG as its fuel of choice. This is despite recent research which has exposed the lies of industrial lobbying platforms like SEA/LNG. The peer reviewed research reveals that LNG extracted and exported from the US is 33% more polluting than coal. Methane leaks occur throughout the LNG extraction and supply process causing health problems and the destruction of areas and coastal communities wherever an LNG plant appears. These same leaks continue onboard LNG powered vessels, helping accelerate climate collapse. To cover up this uncomfortable truth the industry trumpets ‘biomethane’ and ‘e-methane’ products that are only 6% of the EU market and even less worldwide (and both still leak methane throughout their supply chains). The industrial scale of LNG greenwashing has converted the UN IMO MEPC into a puppet for the fossil fuel industry.
⬆️ It’s true, LNG really does like greenwashing.
Read the facts about Liquefied Natural Gas.
Current Status of LNG and Shipping
Between 2012 and 2018, methane emissions from LNG-fueled ships grew by 150 percent (Fourth IMO GHG Study 2020). Real-world methane emissions from shipping also indicate that the sector’s contribution to climate change is larger than previously estimated. Despite the negative climate and environmental impacts, the shipping industry is projected to witness further growth in LNG demand, with the anticipated addition of about 160 to 500 new LNG-fueled vessels annually until 2030.
We Need Strong Methane Regulations at the IMO
According to the IPCC (AR6), addressing the climate emergency and its devastating impacts on people requires urgently tackling methane emissions in the near term. LNG proponents are gaslighting policymakers about the real size of the climate and health impacts of LNG while jeopardising a survivable future on this planet.
The IMO is the United Nations body regulating international shipping. Currently, no specific international regulations exist for methane emissions from ships. However, several opportunities exist to comprehensively integrate methane into the IMO’s regulatory framework during the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC83). If this doesn’t happen we propose a more drastic future for the IMO.
Call for action at the IMO:
LNG is a fossil fuel that negatively impacts people, the environment, and the climate at every stage of its life cycle.
We demand:
1/ Methane emissions are considered as a greenhouse gas and included in any MEPC plans to levy a carbon tax on shipping, weighted by fugitive methane’s excess climate forcing capacity.
2/ The Member States of the IMO recognise LNG as a fossil fuel and stop listening to the SEA LNG lobbyists, locking them out of the IMO instead.
3/ The IMO to promote efficiency and the use of slow steaming, capacity reduction and, sail and electrically powered vessels by incentivising uptake in the shipping sector, empowering and upskilling workers and introducing fairer shipping routes.
⬆️ Is it a bird? is it a plane?
⬆️ The posters stuck around for a while.
Photos and film by S. Staines.