Insure our future, not the LNG Boom!
LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) is a climate, environmental justice and financial risk. This is why insurers must exit now:
- LNG expansion is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Continued underwriting locks in decades of pollution and climate chaos.
- LNG projects disproportionately harm low-income, Black, Indigenous, and other frontline communities, perpetuating environmental racism and pollution burdens.
- Oversupply, stranded assets, and long-term fossil contracts threaten both financial stability and the insurability of our future. Continuing to underwrite fossil fuels fuels the disasters that destroy the very markets insurers depend on.
Our best insurance is to keep fossil fuels in the ground!
LNG is not a „bridge fuel“
- LNG is often sold as “clean” or “natural,” but it’s mostly methane — a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than CO₂ in the short term.
- LNG expansion is wildly out of sync with the Paris Agreement. Existing and under-construction capacity already exceeds IEA demand scenarios — no new infrastructure fits a 1.5°C pathway.
- LNG production causes methane leaks and energy-intensive production: U.S. LNG can be more climate-harmful than coal.
LNG destroys nature and biodiversity
- LNG terminals are devastating to biodiversity, destroying marshes, wetlands, and coastal areas — critical hurricane barriers and habitats for endangered species.
LNG fuels the insurability crisis
- Communities near LNG sites are facing escalating hurricanes, floods, and extreme weather: the very disasters insurers increasingly refuse to cover. Entire regions face “insurance withdrawal”, where coverage is unaffordable or unavailable.
- Insurers withdraw wildfire or hurricane coverage for homeowners citing climate risk as a reason yet continue to underwrite high-risk LNG terminals in those regions.
- The paradox is clear: insurers finance and insure the very fossil projects driving these losses.
Gulf Coast LNG: A public health and environmental justice crisis
- Most new LNG export terminals and pipelines are in U.S. Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana and Texas where Indigenous, Black and low-income communities are already burdened by pollution —perpetuating a legacy of environmental racism.
- Petrochemical and fossil fuel build-out poisons their air and water.
- Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” has some of the highest concentrations of fossil and petrochemical facilities in the world, driving elevated cancer risks, reproductive and maternal health problems, respiratory disease, and reduced life expectancy.
- People within three miles of proposed LNG terminals are exposed to more fine particulate air pollution than 80% of the U.S. population, increasing the risk of asthma, heart disease, lung inflammation, and premature death.
- LNG expansion also threatens local livelihoods — fishers, shrimpers, and crabbers lose income as tanker traffic, dredging, and water pollution destroy traditional fishing grounds.
What insurers must do now:
- Exclude all new LNG projects from underwriting and investment and quickly phase out existing ones
- Disclose fossil exposure and adopt transparent 1.5°C-aligned transition plans
- Redirect capacity to renewable infrastructure, adaptation, and resilience projects
- Align with Insure Our Future and support regulation that links financial supervision with climate stability
Insurance companies, like Generali, have already begun excluding new LNG infrastructure — You too can be a climate champion and follow suit!
Sources:
New Climate Institute: “The gas boom no one ordered?” (08.09.2025); Robert W. Howarth: “The Greenhouse Gas Footprint of LNG Exported from the United States” Energy Science & Engineering (2024); Insure Our Future: “2024 Scorecard: Cut emission today to insure tomorrow” (2024); Swiss Score Card; Human Rights Watch: “We’re Dying Here’: The Fight for Life in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley (2023); IEEFA: “Calcasieu Pass LNG: Unreliable Operations, Excessive Pollution and Profits” (2023); Public Citizen & Rainforest Action Network: ; “Risk Exposure: The Insurers Secretly Backing the Methane Gas Boom in the US Gulf South” (2024)
