Or, Clean Coal v. 2.0
h/t’s www.levernews.com/… & www.theguardian.com/...
Back in January this year, the Biden Administration surprised both the climate community and the fossil fuel industry by pausing permits for new LGN (liquified natural gas) terminals while it explores whether or not expanding LGN exports is in the public interest.
We are already the largest natural gas exporters in the world and the paused terminals are projected to add an additional 340 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere if these projects are completed. While burning LNG does yield less carbon pollution than the energy equivalent of the coal burning it replaces, the carbon released upstream, during the production of LNG, in the form of methane releases from the drilling sites, leaky pipelines and the distillation of the components of LNG to refine the LNG for export, is enough to erase that advantage. Thus the industry came up with the new catchphrase to cleanse their reputation: Certified Clean
Certified Clean LNG is a voluntary market, like carbon offsets, in which third party certifiers (the three biggest certifiers are MiQ, Project Canary and Equitable Origin) are hired by the fossil fuel industry to survey their upstream production sites and grade their methane ‘intensity’. (The LNG producer, Cheniere, one of the largest companies in the industry, decided to create its own certification scheme to self ‘regulate’ its system of LNG production to market Certified Clean LNG.)
Among the limitations of the Certified Clean scheme to greenwash the reputations of the LNG producers are the fact that since it is a voluntary market, producers won’t hire the certifiers to survey their dirtiest sites, as that would be self defeating their goal to present themselves as responsible LNG producers. This is borne out in the certifications that MiQ has so far released. 78% of the sites surveyed by MiQ received a grade of A, while zero sites surveyed by them received grades of D, E, or F.
The drive to rebrand LNG as Certified Clean began in 2020, when the French government asked the energy giant Engie to hold off purchasing LNG from Cheniere over concerns about its carbon footprint. (Engie has since resumed purchasing LNG from Cheniere that Cheniere has self certified as “lower carbon”)
Another impetus for the creation of Certified Clean LNG is the collapse of the voluntary market in carbon offsets. (Market value of carbon offsets drops 61%, report finds- www.theguardian.com/...) Carbon offsets work by creating certificates, or “allowances” to offset one ton of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases by investing in environmental projects anywhere in the world. The top 50 carbon offset projects are concentrated in 20 (mostly developing) countries, involving forestry, hydroelectric dams, wind and solar farms, waste disposal and household appliance efficiency, according to Allied Offsets (alliedoffsets.com), a comprehensive emissions trading database. It should be noted that offsetting emissions does nothing to slow the growth of, or actually reduce any carbon emissions. The corporate sector loves to spend millions of dollars burnishing their climate credentials, but hates to spend anything to actually live up to the values they espouse beyond increasing profits.
“Overall, carbon offsets are, according to most expert analyses, neither credible nor scalable to the urgency and scale of the carbon dioxide problem,” said Richard Heede, co-director of the Climate Accountability Institute, a nonprofit research and education group.
“This report documents the prevalence of ‘worthless’ or ‘likely junk’ carbon offsets in the global Voluntary Carbon Market, and undermines the corporate rationale for claiming emissions reductions based on such credits,” Heede added.
Until we can impose a cap and trading system, as we were able to do with the problem of acid rain and sulphur dioxide, in what seems to be so long time ago, in a galaxy far away, upon the corporate sector and force them to actually reduce emissions, we will not make progress on slowing or reversing climate change.
That does not mean that were are powerless in the face of corporate malfeasance, it just means that we will have to act individually, rethink what the difference is between our needs and wants and realign our wants to support our climate.
As Mahatma Ghandi once said: “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
If enough people do the insignificant, it becomes significant.
(Note: Although I have been accused of using too broad a brush to tar Democratic politicians over past actions they have taken, there are 14 Democratic Members of Congress who have signed onto a letter to President Biden, opposing the terminal permitting pause and/or voted with Republicans to relaunch LNG processing and exports. At least eight of them are also recipients of donations from the energy and natural resource industries. They are:
Jim Costa (D-Calif.),
Lou Correa (D-Calif.),
Mary Peltola(D-Alaska),
Marc Veasey (D-Texas)
Don Davis (D-N.C.),
Jared Golden (D-Maine),
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.),
Susan Wild (D-Penn.)
So, if your Representative is on this list, perhaps a good talking to, or a strongly worded letter, is warranted, if you have the time.)