Deutsche Bank sees natgas as good climate bet

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investments in natural gas will play a bigger role in the short-term fight against climate change, the head of Deutsche Bank's (DBKGn.DE) global asset management said.

"Clearly natural gas in our view is going to play a much more prominent role because of its significant advantage in its carbon footprint over oil and coal," Kevin Parker, head of the more than $600 billion asset fund at Germany's biggest bank, said at the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit.

Natural gas emits emits about half the carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas -- per unit of energy generated as coal does. It is also cleaner than motor fuels like gasoline and diesel and can be burned in automobiles and trucks.

Parker said gas is a better short-term solution than "clean coal" plans to pump underground for permanent storage carbon dioxide emissions siphoned off from coal plants, as those plans are decades from reality. "Clearly coal at the moment is a loser," he said.

About 1 percent of Deutsche's global asset fund is currently allocated to purely sustainable investments but Parker has said that would rise to 10 or 15 percent if the United States passes climate legislation.

On natural gas, big new U.S. supply finds and low demand have helped push the price down to the lowest in more than 7 year. U.S. gas reserve estimates have jumped more than a third since 2006 and the country is estimated to have enough gas at current production rates to supply it for more than 90 years.

Such numbers have led energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens to invest in companies converting a portion of the massive U.S. car and truck fleet to run on natural gas. It costs about $600 to convert cars that run on liquid fuels to burn natural gas instead.

Some environmentalists have countered that a shift to natural gas from oil and coal would be a disservice to the fight against climate change because it would only delay serious action by a few decades.

But Parker disputed that in a teleconference into Reuters office in New York, saying that natural gas was important because it is available now and that the United States already has a vast network to transport the fuel.

"Delay is absolutely, positively one of the strategies that need to be employed here in order to give us more time to roll out more solutions to the carbon problem," he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)