A shipping base for liquefied natural gas in Freeport, Texas.Kyodo/AP

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Exported gas emits far more greenhouse gas emissions than coal, despite fossil-fuel industry claims it is a cleaner alternative, according to a major new research paper that challenges the controversial yet rapid expansion of gas exports from the US to Europe and Asia.

Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels when combusted for energy, with oil and gas producers for years promoting cleaner-burning gas as a “bridge” fuel and even a “climate solution” amid a glut of new liquefied natural gas (or LNG) terminals, primarily in the US.

But the research, which itself has become enmeshed in a political argument in the US, has concluded that LNG is 33 percent worse in terms of planet-heating emissions over a 20-year period compared with coal.

More than 125 climate, environmental and health scientists wrote to the Biden administration last month to defend Howarth’s research and urge a continuation of the pause on LNG exports.

“The idea that coal is worse for the climate is mistaken—LNG has a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fuel,” said Robert Howarth, an environmental scientist at Cornell University and author of the new paper. “To think we should be shipping around this gas as a climate solution is just plain wrong. It’s greenwashing from oil and gas companies that has severely underestimated the emissions from this type of energy.”

Drilling, moving, cooling, and shipping gas from one country to another uses so much energy that the actual final burning of gas in people’s........

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