Prediction Partly held up AI assessment confidence: 80% certainty 4/5 debate potential 4/5

Planned US LNG expansion would surpass Europe's total greenhouse gas emissions

Bill McKibben · LNG exports: America’s hidden ‘climate bomb’ · Dec 18, 2023 · at 7:02

Environmentalist Bill McKibben discusses the projected greenhouse gas footprint of planned U.S. liquefied natural gas export terminals based on research by Jeremy Symons.

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“If we let it go all the way that the LNG industry wants, Soon enough, American LNG exports will be producing more greenhouse gas emissions than everything that goes on in Europe.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

If the U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export buildout proceeds as the industry plans, American LNG exports will produce more greenhouse gas emissions than all of Europe.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Bill McKibben's December 2023 statement referenced a November 2023 analysis by Jeremy Symons (updated April 2024), which found that if the entire planned and proposed U.S. LNG export capacity were built and operational, its gross lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions would reach approximately 3.9 Gt CO2e per year (or 3.5 Gt CO2e net). This exceeds the domestic annual emissions of the European Union (EU-27), which were approximately 3.4 Gt CO2e in 2022 and fell to ~3.2 Gt CO2e in 2023–2024. However, the claim is only partially true because: (1) if 'all of Europe' is interpreted geographically to include non-EU nations (such as the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, Turkey, and European Russia), Europe's domestic emissions total 5.0–6.5 Gt CO2e annually, well above the projected LNG export emissions; and (2) the underlying 3.5–3.9 Gt lifecycle calculation relies on high-end upstream methane leakage and GWP20 assumptions (similar to Howarth's models) that are contested by the IEA and DOE/NETL baseline models.

Symons Public Affairs analysis (2023/2024) estimated that full buildout of proposed U.S. LNG export terminals would generate 3.5 to 3.9 Gt CO2e in annual lifecycle emissions.
EU-27 annual domestic greenhouse gas emissions were ~3.4 Gt CO2e in 2022 and declined to ~3.2 Gt CO2e in 2023–2024, which is lower than the projected full U.S. LNG buildout footprint.
Total geographic European emissions (including non-EU countries such as the UK, Turkey, and European Russia) reach 5.0 to 6.5 Gt CO2e annually, exceeding the projected LNG export emissions.

Checked against

[1] symonspa.com [2] symonspa.com [3] energy.gov [4] researchgate.net [5] soci.org [6] wikipedia.org [7] europa.eu [8] ourworldindata.org

total greenhouse gas emissions Europe geographic gigatons EDGAR Robert Howarth "greenhouse gas footprint of liquefied natural gas" 2023 2024 Jeremy Symons US LNG emissions Europe "EU-27" total greenhouse gas emissions 2022 2023 gigatons EEA US LNG exports emissions compare Europe greenhouse gas emissions planned buildout US LNG export buildout greenhouse gas emissions more than Europe McKibben

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

American LNG exports Europe

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