US climate envoy calls for 10-year limit on natural gas reliance

WASHINGTON • US climate envoy John Kerry has put the natural gas industry on notice, saying the world's reliance on the fossil fuel should be limited to potentially a decade, unless its greenhouse gas emissions are fully captured.

Though natural gas burns cleaner than coal when used to generate electricity, it should not be part of a long-term climate strategy without emission-control technology, Mr Kerry said in an interview on Thursday with Bloomberg Television.

"If you can capture the emissions - literally, genuinely - then you're reducing the problem," said Mr Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate.

"We have to put the industry on notice: You've got six years, eight years, no more than 10 years or so, within which you've got to come up with a means by which you're going to capture, and if you're not capturing, then we have to deploy alternative sources of energy."

Mr Kerry's comments come as the world's climate goals are overshadowed by a short-term push to steer natural gas to European countries and help wean them off Russian energy.

In the United States, many policy initiatives that are meant to help fulfil the nation's Paris agreement pledge to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 remain stalled in Congress, months before an election that could cost President Joe Biden's Democratic Party control of the House and Senate.

Natural gas produces about 50 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than coal when burned to generate electricity, though environmentalists have warned that methane leaks in pipelines and processing equipment can obliterate any of its green credentials.

"I'll take that 50 per cent reduction for the next eight years, because our goal between now and 2030 is to reduce emissions by a minimum of 45 per cent to do what the science has told us we have to do," Mr Kerry said.

"However, no one should make it easy for the gas interests to be building out 30-or 40-year infrastructure, which we're then stuck with and you know the fight will be 'well, we can't close these because of the employment, because of the investors, et cetera'."

The war in Ukraine and Europe's bid to wean itself off Russian energy are temporarily disrupting the world's climate progress, but could ultimately accelerate the shift to clean power, Mr Kerry said.

"In the long run, I think most countries have come to understand they don't want their source of energy to be weaponised by another country as (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is doing.

"They want the freedom to be able to move to cleaner energy, and they are going to," Mr Kerry added.

BLOOMBERG