Comments on EIA of The EIA Study for LNG / Gas Infrastructure Development Project
January 2, 2020
By: Admin
No Comments
1 st January 2020
Director General
Department of Coast Conservation and coastal resource management
4th Floor, Ministry of Fisheries Building,
New Secretariat, Maligawatta, Colombo 10
Dear Sir,
Subject: Comments on EIA of The EIA Study for LNG / Gas Infrastructure Development Project
Centre for Environmental Justice is a public interest environmental organization based in Sri Lanka established in 2004. We herewith send our comments to the above EIA under the request for public comments as per the section16 of the Coast Conservation Act (No. 57 of 1981).
LNG is new to Sri Lanka. Therefore it is worth to consider international level perspectives on pros and cons of LNG development. Mr.Ted Nace, the executive director of the Global Energy monitor, US-based research and advocacy group in an interview with the guardian newspaper said that
“it was difficult to compare emissions from coal and gas given their different nature. Gas has lower CO2 emissions than black coal when burned for electricity, but LNG developments also leak methane, which is a relatively short-lived gas that lasts in the atmosphere about 12 years but still has a warming power about 28 times greater than the same amount of CO2 when calculated over a century.”
Natural gas is at times described as a transition fuel in the response to the climate crisis as it has about half the carbon dioxide emissions of black coal when burned to generate electricity. That argument has been rejected by the head of the International Energy Agency and science bodies warning the world needs to rapidly move to clean energy and industries.
GHG emissions from the LNG segments are likely to consist primarily of CO2 CH4 and N2O. The other listed GHGs would potentially be contributing a very minor amount. However in the cost benefit analysis of the EIA section 8.4 this has been stated completely different manner LNG has been identified as a clean energy source and solution to climate change/global warming which is not true.
