Historical and Future Global Emissions Reductions due to Qatar’s LNG Exports

Qatar exports most of its LNG to South Korea, Japan, China and India. Most of Qatar’s export markets have carbon-intensive economies where industry contributes, on average, 32% to total GDP. This paper attempts to estimate the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions due to Qatar’s LNG displacing more carbon-intensive fuels in Qatar’s main export markets. LNG emits almost 50% less carbon dioxide than coal and 30% less carbon dioxide than oil products. Therefore, LNG is a cleaner alternative to coal and oil products, particularly in the power sector and industry. Using data from the IEA, EIA and the World Bank, we estimate the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions due to Qatar’s LNG replacing more carbon-intensive fuels in Qatar’s export markets by assuming a hypothetical scenario where Qatar’s LNG disappears from the global energy mix between 2005 and 2020. We estimate an upper bound where all of Qatar’s LNG is replaced by coal and a lower bound where Qatar’s LNG is replaced by all fuels in the energy mix in proportion to their existing shares. Finally, using a stochastic approach, we develop a ‘most likely’ scenario that considers the annual growth rate in coal consumption and the share of coal in the energy mix.The same analysis is conducted for a scenario that projects energy consumption and emissions to 2040. The results of the analysis show that between 2005 and 2020, in the ‘most likely’ scenario,by replacing coal and other carbon-intensive fuels, Qatar’s LNG exports likely reduced global emissions by more than 600 MtCO2. During the same period, these emission reductions amounted to 40% of Qatar’s annual local emissions on average. However, in the future scenario, emission reductions due to Qatar’s LNG exports decrease significantly and the gap between Qatar’s local emissions and how much it offsets by exporting LNG grows over time. This is mainly due to the phase out of coal from global energy systems. We conclude with policy recommendations on how Qatar can close the gap between its local emissions and how much it offsets through LNG exports.