S. Korea's financing institutes downplaying LNG's impact on climate change: SFOC

South Korean public financing institutions have downplayed the impact of liquefied natural gas (LNG) on climate change, according to climate activist group Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), who claimed otherwise.

The greenhouse emissions occur throughout the LNG value chain from extraction to liquefaction, transportation, regasification, and consumption, said the SFOC.

Youn Se-jong, Climate Finance Program Director at SFOC, said it is insufficient to review LNG emissions simply at the consumption stage.

Youn pointed out that with 46 percent of Korea’s oil and gas public financing going to projects for drillships, offshore plants, and transportation vessels, up to 45 percent of greenhouse gases are emitted before reaching end-user facilities.

He noted that in the LNG production cycle alone, the pollutants are carbon dioxide and methane.

\South Korean institutions financed a combined $82 billion in the upstream and midstream oil and gas processes before the actual end-stage for power consumption, from 2011 to 2020.