The US government is halting decisions over further expanding its gas exports until it can apply updated climate considerations to projects seeking new approvals.
Announcing the move on Friday morning, President Joe Biden said the pause on all pending export permits for liquified natural gas (LNG) “sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time”.
The decision comes after Biden faced mounting pressure from environmentalists and climate activists to apply the brakes on the US build-up of fossil fuel capacity. The groups represent an important voter base for Biden as he seeks reelection in November.
The US is the world’s largest exporter of LNG and shipments are expected to keep soaring as a result of projects already approved and under construction.
But the review will put on hold the planned development of at least four more gas export terminals on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
That includes the Calcasieu Pass 2 (or CP2), a facility in Louisiana described by campaigners as a “carbon bomb”. If built, it could ship up to 24 million tonnes of gas every year.
New climate tests
Biden said his administration “will take a hard look at the impacts of LNG exports on energy costs, America’s energy security and our environment”.
A White House statement said the pause would allow the White House to integrate “critical considerations” that have emerged since the last analysis of gas export approvals was carried out five years ago.
That includes the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. Gas supporters have historically promoted it as a “cleaner” fossil fuel because of its reduced carbon dioxide emissions compared to coal.
But LNG is primarily made of methane, a much more potent earth-warming gas. While burning it turns it into carbon dioxide, methane leaks during transport can push its lifetime emissions higher than those of coal, according to a new study by methane expert Robert Howarth currently undergoing peer review.
Liquified natural gas (LNG) facilities in Texas. Photo: Tim Aubry / Greenpeace
Max Gruenig, senior policy advisor at E3G, said Biden’s decision is a “significant shift” because the Department of Energy, which is responsible for assessing the projects, has historically only taken economic benefits into account.
“They will have to come up with a new methodology to assess what is beneficial to the public that includes externalities like climate change”, he added. “But the problem is, of course, as soon as you publish the details of the methodology, you risk being litigated against and attacked in court. The pause allows the Biden administration to avoid this and buy itself more time until the election”.
Elections in sight
Campaigners hailed the White House announcement as a “bold step” and “a historic win”. Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said the decisions “makes it clear that the Biden administration is listening to the calls to break America’s reliance on dirty fossil fuels and secure a livable future for us all”.
Sixty percent of US voters surveyed in a poll by Data for Progress, a progressive think tank last November supported limiting gas exports.
Gruenig said that the Biden administration had been “growing more careful” about climate considerations in energy infrastructure after approving the Willow oil project in Alaska. “I don’t think the White House expected that would cause such a massive backlash from the climate community”, he added.
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Biden’s statement attempts to draw a dividing line with his likely opponent Donald Trump. He criticised “MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans” who “willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future”.
Gruenig believes the LNG expansion freeze will bolster US credibility on the international climate stage, where many developing countries and campaigners regularly point fingers at American hypocrisy over fossil fuel investments.
Lobbyists fan energy security fears
Industry groups have condemned the pause as a “win for Russia” and “a loss for American allies”. As rumors of Biden’s plans swirled around in previous days, the prevailing narrative from pro-gas lobbyists has been that the approvals freeze would put Europe’s future energy security at risk.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced the bloc to look for alternative gas sources, US LNG exports to Europe have increased rapidly.
But analysts believe this is going to change soon as a result of rapid renewables rollout and better energy efficiency. By 2026, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts European gas demand will be one-fifth below the pre-war level of 2021.
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Existing LNG installations should be able to satisfy that demand without any further expansion, according to IEEFA. Their analyst say that, just taking into account terminals already being built, US export capacity by the end of this decade will be three-quarters higher than European demand.
A group of 60 European lawmakers largely from Green parties made that point in a letter to the White House on Thursday, arguing that the fossil fuel industry is using Europe as “an excuse” to expand gas exports. “The demand for new gas from industry voices in Europe is a false one”, they said.
While using pro-Europe rhetoric, gas producers could actually be looking to sell their products in other, more promising markets. Venture Global, the owner of the CP2 terminal in Lousiana, has signed purchase agreements with Japan and China, for example.
The post US government pauses new gas export terminals in ‘historic win’ for climate appeared first on Climate Home News.
US government pauses new gas export terminals in ‘historic win’ for climate
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
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None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
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The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.