LIQUEFIED NATURAL GAS (LNG) IS NOT ‘GREEN’
07.04.2025
⬆️ Fossil fuel and shipping lobbyists have turned the IMO MEPC into a puppet show by claiming LNG is a green fuel. LNG is a fossil fuel that leaks deadly methane all along its supply chain. It is causing premature deaths wherever it’s produced and it is warming the planet at an alarming rate.
SEA LNG is a lobbying platform created to convince everyone that LNG will help shipping to transition to a greener future. But this is lie.
Recent research 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.
⬆️ Bilitaki Lovo, representative of the Micronesia Center for Sustainable Transport explains how shipping pollution affects the lives of Pacific Islanders, pollution which won’t be helped by a transition to LNG.
THE SUCCESS OF LNG GREENWASHING
SEA LNG has been very successful, so successful that companies like Maersk, Royal Caribbean, and MSC have been promoting their LNG ships as ‘green’ and selling this lie to the general public. What’s more the IMO is convinced by this lie and is doing nothing to stop LNG becoming the fossil fuel of choice for shipping – in the EU alone the consumption of LNG by ships has doubled from 2.2 million tonnes (Mt) in 2018 to 4.4 Mt in 2022. Methane emissions have more than doubled between 2018 and 2023 in the EU, making up 26% of the transport sector’s total methane emissions in 2022—a surge largely attributed to the growing use of LNG as a marine fuel, according to an EMSA report.
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation used to make you doubt your own perceptions and sanity, often by distorting facts or reality. LNG fans are employing gaslighting tactics, like funding research and selectively citing studies that support their narrative while discrediting researchers highlighting LNG’s risks. They are also undermining dissenting community voices and opinion leaders by labelling them as “alarmists” or “obstructionists.”
Enterprises such as these, engaging in gaslighting while making sustainability claims, may be violating their legal responsibilities to shareholders and risk litigation if such material risks, including the litigation risk, are not properly reflected in their audited accounts. Likewise, credit rating agencies which fail to detect this greenwash are also failing to give accurate sustainability readouts to their subscribers in the financial sector, risking their own credibility and business models.
Not to mention any failure of ethical responsibilities to wider stakeholders to avoid collapsing climate, nature and society by means of fugitive methane and fossil carbon emissions that result from LNG. Far from clean, LNG is one of the dirtiest fuels there is. Touting it as a clean fuel is a technological lie. Using it in shipping is a monumental step backwards.
Read the facts about how Liquefied Natural Gas is harming the environment.
⬆️ Popcorn anyone? It’s a lot easier to swallow than the lies of SEA-LNG.ORG
Photos by Guy Reece.