Can we really reduce carbon emissions by sending LNG to India?

This article is part of the Reality Check series by Canada's National Observer. Have a question for us? Reach out at [email protected].

Claim: By sending our LNG to India, Canada could reduce emissions by 2.5 billion tonnes. 

This is a talking point that Pierre Poilievre has brought up several times over the campaign. His party’s platform pledges a ‘one and done’ rule for new resource projects, and he’s talked about approving 10 long-standing energy projects, including Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) expansion in British Columbia, uranium mining in Saskatchewan, and a nickel-cobalt mine in Ontario.

During the English-language leaders debate last week, Poilievre was asked how he balances the priorities of fighting climate change and expanding energy projects. 

Poilievre said his government would “bring home” jobs while also “bringing down emissions around the world.” He explained that by approving natural gas liquefaction and export, and then sending Canadian gas to India, “to displace half of their demand for electricity, we could reduce emissions by 2.5 billion tonnes, which is three times the total emissions of Canada.” 

The official party platform also mentions exporting LNG by utilizing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The party would “Use Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to dramatically reduce global emissions and fight climate change by exporting cleaner Canadian resources and technologies” and “Use Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to bring home jobs while exporting cleaner resources like Canadian liquified natural gas (LNG) and technologies to help lower global emissions.”

Verdict: False

There are a few aspects of this to debunk here. 

Let’s start with Poilievre’s promise to fast-track approvals on energy projects, like the LNG terminal in BC. As The Tyee reports, there’s one major issue with that: It’s already approved. It got the provincial permits stamped in 2015 and federal approval in 2016. What we’re now waiting on is LNG Canada Phase 2. As we have reported, that would be an expansion to the already existing terminal. 

According to John Young, LNG senior strategist with Climate Action Network Canada, it’s not federal approvals standing in the way of the terminal moving forward. It's money. “It just doesn’t add up very well for somebody who wants to be prime minister to be so factually incorrect,” Young said. 

Public funds were used to get the project past the first round of approvals. But in order to move forward, Young told The Tyee that further funds are needed from investors like Shell, Mitsubishi, and PetroChina. And they might need new assurances since the market is in a very different state than it was in 2016. (Girl, the tariffs.)

After Poilievre announced he would approve the LNG terminal at a campaign stop in Terrace, B.C., Sven Biggs, oil and gas program director for Stand.earth, an environmental group, released a statement, saying “The fact is, Phase Two of LNG Canada has all the permits it needs. It isn’t being built yet because Shell and the other big oil companies that own it need another handout from Ottawa to make this project viable.” 

But what about his claims that by shipping gas off to India, we could lower global emissions — and use the Paris Agreement to do it?

That’s not how any of that works. 

First, Poilievre is claiming that LNG is a better fuel to use over coal because it “burns cleaner,” which is the “bridge fuel” argument put forward by the fossil fuel industry. But we now know better. It seems previous studies had not factored in the emissions produced during the liquefaction process. Rather than being better for the environment, LNG is actually significantly worse than coal. In 2023, 170 climate scientists signed a letter urging then-US President Joe Biden to reject plans for more LNG terminals. 

So, it’s not true that if India swapped half of its coal for Canadian natural gas, global emissions would drop. But where does the Paris Agreement come into this?

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lays out how countries can cooperate with each other and transfer carbon credits, ostensibly in the name of meeting targets. For example, if Indonesia puts mechanisms in place that protect national forests, which absorb carbon emissions, they might be credited for those emissions. They could then sell those credits to Japan to meet its reduction targets. But to avoid double dipping, Indonesia would no longer be credited for those reductions if it sold the credit to another country. 

As Canada’s National Observer’s Natasha Bulowski reported this week, the Conservative goal seems to be to change the international framework for counting greenhouse gas emissions so that Canada can get credit for India reducing emissions by burning Canadian LNG instead of coal.

That’s not how the carbon credit system works. The country that makes the fuel swap — in this case, India — gets credit for lowering emissions, regardless of where that fuel was produced. And at the end of the day, carbon emissions are carbon emissions, no matter where they are released. India has committed to reach net-zero by 2070 and it’s not going to achieve that goal if it gives other countries credit for its emission reductions. 

Using Article 6 in this way has been a dream of other Canadian politicians. In 2023, Canada’s National Observer reported that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was advocating for the same goal in meetings with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. At the time, one expert said that if Canada brought the idea up with other United Nations countries, they would be “laughed out of the room.”