O&G Journal: Role of gas will be limited in climate-change battle, experts note

Natural gas potentially can help address global climate change, but its contributions will be limited, certain experts agreed. More intelligent multinational carbon emissions reduction policies that countries are willing to actually follow will be essential, the experts said Oct. 8 at a Bipartisan Policy Center conference on the global gas renaissance and climate change.

“We haven’t made progress in greenhouse gas emissions reduction,” said Joseph E. Aldy, an assistant public policy professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “Emissions have increased in the last decade. Gas could help change this, but only as a transition that begins with its replacing coal-fired power generation.”

David Garman, a former US Energy Undersecretary who now is a principal at the Decker Garman Sullivan and Associates consulting firm, said he was encouraged by the recent joint effort by oil and gas producers, the Environmental Defense Fund, and University of Texas at Austin researchers to actually measure wellhead GHG emissions.  MORE