The future oil and gas extraction plans of just 25 companies are set to blow the world’s 1.5°C carbon budget, finds a new Energy Monitor investigation. The Net Zero by 2050 pathway from the International Energy Agency, published in 2021, concluded there should be no development of new oil and gas fields if the world is to reach net zero by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Energy Monitor maps out the data behind this recommendation, showing just how extensive the climate impact of the world’s biggest oil and gas producers is likely to be.
Our analysis shows that the world’s 25 leading oil and gas producers are extracting oil and gas from more than 3,700 fields around the world, with a further 300 planned in the immediate future. These fields collectively contain 500 billion barrels of oil and around 2,300 trillion cubic feet of gas, according to analysis of thousands of exclusive data points from our parent company GlobalData.
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“This [GlobalData] data confirms what investors have known for some time: that a business-as-usual approach by the oil sector is bad for investors and catastrophic for the planet,” Andrew Logan, senior director of oil and gas at the US climate think tank Ceres, told Energy Monitor. “The industry needs to focus on accelerating the transition to a low-carbon future, not investing in carbon-intensive assets that the world won’t need, and the climate can’t afford.”
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