Governments plan to increase oil and gas production until at least 2050, UN-backed study reveals.
Major fossil fuel-producing countries plan to extract more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with the Paris climate accord’s goal for limiting global temperature rise.
This is despite frequent and devastating heatwaves, droughts, floods and wildfires in recent months.
Coal production needs to ramp sharply down to address climate change, but government plans and projections would lead to increases in global production until 2030, according to a United Nations-backed study released Wednesday.
Global oil and gas production, meanwhile, would increase until at least 2050, the Production Gap Report states.
This conflicts with government commitments under the climate accord, which seeks to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Glaring gap between climate goals and fossil fuel extraction
The report examines the disparity between climate goals and fossil fuel extraction plans, a gap that has remained largely unchanged since it was first quantified in 2019.
“Governments’ plans to expand fossil fuel production are undermining the energy transition needed to achieve net-zero emissions, creating economic risks and throwing humanity’s future into question,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said in a statement.
As world leaders convene for another round of United Nations climate talks at the end of the month in Dubai, seeking to curb greenhouse gases, Andersen said nations must “unite behind a managed and equitable phase-out of coal, oil and gas – to ease the turbulence ahead and benefit every person on this planet.”
…
