Climate Scientist’s LNG research “sounded like fossil fuel lobbyist”

Burrier, a director of public policy at Canadian fossil fuel giant TC Energy, said the study was largely to blame for public skepticism about whether liquefied natural gas (LNG) is as environmentally friendly as the oil and gas industry claims.

“One quoted study that drove a lot of this initial activism … said that LNG is worse than coal,” Burrier said.

“I asked the team to dissect this and of course they found it was written by a long- time anti-natural gas advocate,” he continued, identifying the author as “a Cornell professor.”

Burrier didn’t mince words during that lunch-time meeting in February 2024, a recording of which was leaked to The Narwhal. His comments are among a number of statements made during two internal company calls that highlight how the fossil fuel industry is sensitive to the public’s awareness of the environmental impacts of LNG.

The study in question, by Cornell University biogeochemist and ecosystem scientist Robert Howarth, did in fact demonstrate how the total greenhouse gas emissions from exported U.S. liquefied natural gas is higher than U.S.-produced coal used in power plants.

But Howarth told The Narwhal he’s no anti-gas advocate. As a professor and a highly cited research scientist, he said he has “an ethical obligation to communicate the results of my research to the public and decision makers” — laid out in the codes of several scientific societies to which he belongs.

“My research, which underwent extensive peer-review by a respectable journal using anonymous expert reviewers, clearly shows that LNG is bad for the climate,” Howarth, who is Cornell’s David R. Atkinson professor of ecology and environmental biology, said in an interview.

Howarth’s research casts doubt on the industry’s common talking point that using natural gas can help address climate change. His work shows how methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, leaks into the atmosphere during LNG processing, transport and storage, as well as from oil and gas fracking operations. Addressing climate change can lead to fewer deaths and injuries from extreme weather, fewer asthma attacks and fewer disease outbreaks.

U.S. President Donald Trump is moving ahead with LNG export approvals and has launched a major assault on science, disrupting U.S. scientific research that over the years has helped the public interpret climate and health threats from fossil fuels like LNG.

That has led to uncertainty over academic funding, including for Howarth’s own lab and a key atmospheric monitoring site it runs, and provoked thousands of protesters, including Nobel laureates, to take to the streets in defence of public science.

LNG is a hot-button issue in Canada too, and documents obtained by The Narwhal show the federal government has been reluctant to accept Howarth’s findings, leading Howarth to conclude the Government of Canada is adopting industry “talking points.”

Federal government casts doubt on U.S. LNG climate research: docs

An internal Canadian government briefing note, released to The Narwhal under access to information law, shows some of Howarth’s research was questioned by the federal energy department.

Natural Resources Canada has been on the hunt for evidence that could demonstrate “social licence” for Canada’s new LNG export industry, taking shape in British Columbia. Canada’s first LNG export project, LNG Canada, is fed by the Coastal GasLink pipeline, built by TC Energy, that will transport fracked gas from the province’s northeast to a Pacific Coast facility that plans to start shipping LNG this year to countries in Asia.

The briefing note shows the department used Howarth’s work to suggest Canadian LNG sent to Asia would have a comparatively low emissions intensity — a term that compares the amount of carbon pollution generated when producing a given amount of a fossil fuel.

Written in the fall of 2024 for the federal minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, the briefing note states, “using Howarth’s methodology,” Canadian LNG sent to Asia would have “up to half” the emissions intensity of American LNG fed by fracked gas from the Permian Basin, a major oil and gas area around Texas, and shipped from the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The documents try to make the case for Canada’s “strict regulations” around methane leaks, as well as better leak detection and repair surveys, better methane reduction technology and other environmental advantages.

The briefing note for Wilkinson also accuses Howarth of basing his work on assumptions that may not reflect the industry’s true state of affairs.

For example, it said Howarth’s use of U.S.-based coal emissions intensity “is not an adequate substitute” for the emission intensity of coal used in Asia to generate power.

It instead cited another figure, picked from a consulting firm, that was 85 per cent higher, saying it “may be more appropriate.” The consulting firm’s figure, the briefing note added, took into account other factors like the type of coal power technology in Asia and the quality of coal there.

It also claimed Howarth used a calculation about how much heat methane can trap in the atmosphere that was based on a shorter timespan than the one the United Nations requires for country reports on emissions.

Howarth said his work is based on academic research and his estimates were in line with most of the other scientific literature in this field.

The consulting firm’s figure, he said, was “very much out of step” with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, considered the world’s top scientific climate authority.

And he argued using a longer timespan for emissions “greatly underestimates the actual influence of methane on the climate.”

While methane doesn’t stick around in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it can trap much more heat over a shorter period. Scientists have projected Earth will cross a critical threshold of warming in the coming decades, meaning the potency of methane over the short term is of immediate concern.

Under a list of “key findings,” the briefing note states that “Howarth has used several assumptions in his analysis that may overstate the difference in emissions intensity.”

Howarth told The Narwhal that this line “sounds like talking points directly from the PR folks in the oil and gas industry.”

The briefing note about Howarth indicates it was written by three officials from Natural Resources Canada with input from a fourth departmental official, and approved by an assistant deputy minister.

Asked for comment, departmental communications advisor Maria Ladouceur said briefing notes are “developed by public servants, with no role from external stakeholders.”

“Industry and public relations consultants did not have a role in drafting or providing input into this briefing note, or any other briefing note prepared by Natural Resources Canada,” Ladouceur said.

She said the department engages with a “wide variety of industry stakeholders on numerous topics of mutual interest as part of day-to-day business” and draws information from a “range of sources such as technical journal publications, news articles, environmental impact assessments, and various reports such as governmental contracted studies.”

“NRCan’s policies continue to be informed by science and evidence-based decision-making,” she said.

Ladouceur also defended the briefing note’s composition, arguing the department used a figure at “the lower end” of the consulting firm’s estimate which she said was “in line with other scientific literature,” while the department provided emission estimates for both methane timespans.

‘Literally did the government’s homework for them’: leaked TC Energy audio

The oil and gas industry has often forged a close relationship with the government, including when the environment department allowed oil and gas lobbyists to discuss decarbonization at a national pavilion during an international climate event in 2022.

It’s unclear how close this relationship runs. At one point during the leaked TC Energy calls, for example, a company official claimed the firm was “given opportunities to write entire briefing notes for ministers and premiers and prime ministers.”

In another instance, Burrier, a former administration official during Trump’s first term in office, claimed TC Energy “literally did the government’s homework for them” by briefing Canadian bureaucrats on how to get LNG export projects built.

TC Energy previously told The Narwhal that some claims made on the leaked recordings were inaccurate, without specifying which ones.

TC Energy did not respond to The Narwhal’s requests for comment about Howarth, Burrier or the briefing note that were sent by email on March 6, March 11 and March 19, and by voicemail on March 19. Burrier did not respond to a request for comment sent through LinkedIn on March 11.

Trump cuts affecting climate research

The briefing note was written while the U.S. presidential election campaign was in full swing. Since then, the B.C. government has cited repeated threats from Trump that he wants to annex Canada as one reason why the province wants to speed up approvals for major energy projects.

B.C. will soon decide whether to approve another major LNG export project, Ksi Lisims LNG, and its feeder pipeline, the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) line.

South of the border, the Trump administration has banned grants mentioning the term “climate” and reportedly blocked U.S. government participation in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s next report.

It has also threatened to deal huge blows to the workforces of U.S. academic science funders like the National Science Foundation and attempted massive purges of federal departments working on climate science, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Howarth said funding for study-abroad programs has been frozen while indirect grants may be slashed, leading to a hiring freeze at Cornell.

He said he has two vacant research scientist positions in his lab that he can’t fill, as well as a third position for a visiting scholar from the Fulbright program — an international academic exchange founded in 1946 — who is supposed to work on harmful algal blooms. The Trump administration froze funds for the Fulbright program in February.

On March 14, Howarth said he heard the U.S. is ending funding for a key atmospheric monitoring site run out of his lab, one of the oldest in the country that measures pollutants like acid rain.

“The Trump administration seems hell-bent on destroying environmental research in the U.S.,” he said.

Carl Meyer,
Matt Simmons,
Local Journalism Initiative Reporters
The Narwhal