Under pressure to curtail its emissions, the gas industry is on a PR spree. But is it all hot air?

In Victoria, more than a dozen councils are looking to ban gas for new homes from next year and the ACT government won’t allow new build homes to connect to gas from January next year. Photograph: Jiri Hamhalter/Getty Images/EyeEm

Australia’s gas industry and the owners of all the pipes and infrastructure are on a public relations splurge to convince customers to stick with it in the face of the grand decarbonisation challenge.

A new term – renewable gas – has emerged, with the industry talking the talk about replacing its fossil fuel gas with alternatives such as hydrogen and gas generated from waste.