Spurred on by activists, New York City last year banned the connection of new buildings to gas mains, joining a growing slate of mostly Democratic jurisdictions across the United States. (The Greens are championing a similar policy in Victoria.)

Pursuing ambitious climate targets and seeking to sever its link to Russian exports, Europe is fast-tracking its efforts to dump gas, with the Netherlands in May announcing that it would ban the use of gas for heating in new homes from 2025.

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The industry is fighting back and was revealed last year to have paid social media influencers to post about how much they liked using gas in both the United States and Australia.

Australia, at the time pursuing a “gas-led recovery” from the economic shock of the pandemic, did not sign the methane pledge in Glasgow, though this week Resources Minister Madeline King told The Guardian the new government would consider signing on.

Despite this, King has also told the Herald and The Age that new domestic gas fields would be part of the solution to the current energy crisis. Energy experts agree that gas “peaker plants” will be needed during a transition to a cleaner energy system to back up renewables during periods of extremely high demand.

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So concerned about the potentially damaging impacts of the gas-led recovery were Australian scientists that in 2020 a group of 25 wrote a letter to Australia’s then-chief scientist, Alan Finkel, to voice their opposition.

“The combustion of natural gas is now the fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the most important greenhouse gas driving climate change,” they wrote.

“On a decadal time frame, methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

“In Australia, the rapid rise in methane emissions is due to the expansion of the natural gas industry. The rate of methane leakage from the full gas economy, from exploration through to end use, has far exceeded earlier estimates.”

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