LNG Expansion Threatens Oceans and Climate 

Our oceans are critical to the fight against climate change but are increasingly threatened by the relentless expansion of fossil fuel extraction.   

The growing manufacture and shipping of liquefied natural gas (LNG), for instance, endangers many of the world’s most important and ecologically critical marine areas. And now the oil and gas industry plans to expand LNG infrastructure into frontier regions—underexplored, pristine areas of significant marine biodiversity that have never been touched by fossil fuel activity before.  

In its political declaration, the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), held in Nice, France, expressed “grave concern” that climate change is weakening the irreplaceable ability of our oceans to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this recognition, most world leaders failed to confront the threat of LNG to the ocean’s most precious ecosystems. This threat is not isolated to oceans: It also cuts across the climate and biodiversity crises and therefore demands coordinated action in multilateral climate, biodiversity, and oceans forums.  

To address this dangerously shortsighted omission, NRDC and our partners organized a side event in Nice that called upon world governments to prioritize the phaseout of LNG and other fossil fuels to protect the oceans and our planet. Partners presented new research that details the risks of methane leaks, chronic oil slicks, and underwater noise that come with LNG infrastructure expansion.  

One important example, which was presented by our Mexican partners, is the Gulf of California. Called the “Aquarium of the World” by legendary ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, this area is a UNESCO-designated World Heritage site and an ocean frontier under threat. The proposed $30 billion Saguaro LNG export terminal would, if built, endanger marine mammals, coastal communities, and the iconic marine ecosystem that has sustained them for millennia. Partners confronting these threats on the coast of Brazil’s Amazon and in the Philippines’ Verde Island Passage also highlighted their efforts to stop fossil fuel expansion in these areas.  

Together, we made it clear at UNOC3 that LNG is not a clean transition fuel. Rather, it will lock in decades of fossil fuel dependency and transform rich marine ecosystems and the coastal communities that depend on them into industrial sacrifice zones.  

Building on the momentum from UNOC3, we brought the same message to the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s June meetings in Bonn, Germany. Unfortunately, like with the conclusions of UNOC3, the expert panels that kicked off the dialogue on day one of these international climate change negotiations again failed to push back against low ambition to phase out fossil fuels.  

Fiji’s head of delegation, on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States, noted this failure in her remarks, stating, “Using ocean ecosystems-based mitigation to achieve national mitigation targets risks diluting mitigation ambition in other sectors…reducing emissions from fossil fuels in the safest and most effective way to reduce global heating. Mitigation efforts need to focus on this rather than the use of unproven methods that involve potential irreversible harm to an already threatened ecosystem.”  

Again, in concert with our partners, NRDC continued to champion a stronger recognition of the threat of fossil fuel infrastructure expansion to the oceans. On the second day of the dialogue, we participated in the breakout discussions and presented our conclusions that fossil fuel infrastructure, especially in ocean frontier areas, is incompatible with international climate and biodiversity goals. As the oil and gas industry continues its push to expand into precious ocean frontiers, this is a critical time to drive that message home—at the heart of global climate and biodiversity negotiations.  

NRDC and its partners will continue to build on this momentum at New York Climate Week in September; the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress in October in Abu Dhabi, UAE; and the U.N. climate negotiations in November in Belém, Brazil.