Scrap new gas infrastructure, says UN report

A major new United Nations report makes it extremely clear that relying on natural gas won’t help the world avoid climate catastrophe. Once seen as a “bridge fuel” that could provide a less-polluting alternative to coal and other fossil fuels, growing evidence shows that gas is a bigger culprit in the climate crisis than previously thought.

Though it’s been attractively branded as “natural” gas, the fuel is primarily plain old methane. When burned, the fuel does produce less carbon dioxide than coal and oil. The problem is that extracting so-called...