When former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in 2013 that the natural gas boom was helping America fight climate change, not everyone was convinced, with methane leaks cited as cause for concern. As it turns out, those concerns might be warranted, according to new research that takes a lot of the green out of our precious natural gas.

“My look at the evidence to date suggests that this [methane leaks] in no way eliminates the significant advantage of gas over coal for CO2 emissions,” Moniz insisted.

Fast-forward to 2019 where research from Stanford University found that the surge in natural gas use in many parts of the world has helped to drive carbon emissions to a record-high over the last two years. Now, we’re on track to break this record and this, according to the Stanford researchers, is because of gas.

On the face of it, all looks good.

Coal use is falling in all the major emitters—the United States, China, and the European Union—and renewables use is rising. Along with it, natural gas use is rising, too. The closer look taken by researchers at natural gas, however, shows that growth in its consumption globally was responsible for 60 percent of carbon emissions growth in the last few years…CLICK for complete article