Climate change-related hardship for Gulf Coast communities will be exacerbated by the Rio Grande LNG Terminal. The population of the USA’s Gulf Coast states – Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida – is expected to exceed 74 million by 2030. Coastline inhabitants will have to contend with severe erosion and subsidence. Such conditions add to the growing threat of large-scale industrial accidents that these energy production facilities represent. Furthermore, the human health and wellbeing impacts of a changing climate hit economically vulnerable populations the hardest, which will have negative political and public health implications.

The worsening health of low-income ethnic minorities is often a consequence of LNG terminals. This terminal is located between the Laguna Madre communities and next to Brownsville, which is a rural, approximately 90% Hispanic and Latinx community. More than 34% of Rio Grande Valley residents live in poverty, a higher percentage than any other metropolitan area in the US. The region already struggles with major health issues and this project would release further thousands of tonnes of pollutants into the air. Across the US, nearly 1.78 million Latinx people live in areas facing cancer risks above the EPA's level of concern, due to toxins emitted by oil and gas facilities. Industrial ozone smog burdens Latinx communities with 153,000 childhood asthma attacks and 112,000 lost school days each year.

For more information on the gendered and racial impacts of the fossil fuel industry in North America – including the Rio Grande LNG Terminal – see WECAN's 2021 report "Gendered and Racial Impacts of the Fossil Fuel Industry in North America and Complicit Financial Institutions".

Negative consequences for local fishing, shrimping and ecotourism are likely to follow this development. The release of effluent water could compromise the beauty and economy of nearby South Padre Island, as will the brown haze created by the terminal’s air pollution. In the Rio Grande Valley, nature tourism alone leads to 6,600 jobs. By contrast, an LNG terminal mostly creates temporary construction roles and a few hundred permanent jobs.

Huge greenhouse gas emissions are an inevitable consequence of this project. LNG is the most carbon-intensive form of natural gas, due to the necessary extraction, piping, liquefying and shipping processes. Burning the annual gas volume that the Rio Grande, Texas and Annova LNG terminals could export when operating at full capacity would create the equivalent annual greenhouse gas emissions of 30 coal-fired power plants.

The area’s ecosystem will be fundamentally altered by the construction, bright lights, tall structures, air pollution and wastewater of the Rio Grande LNG Terminal. For example, endangered ocelots and Aplomado falcons roam this area. As of August 2015, only 53 ocelots were left in Texas and they were all found here.

The terminal is right on the edge of the Bahia Grande unit of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife refuge. The US Fish and Wildlife Service calls this “one of the largest and most successful coastal wetland restoration projects in the US”. This restoration is ongoing. The 21,700-acre refuge is a safe haven for a range of species and native vegetation, as well as a crucial storm barrier.