"Insanity" - Planned Global FF Development Beyond 1.5C Climate Goal: Coal - 460%; Oil 29%, Gas 83% [View all]

[hatrack]

The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Experts called the plans “insanity” which “throw humanity’s future into question”. The energy plans of the petrostates contradicted their climate policies and pledges, the report said. The plans would lead to 460% more coal production, 83% more gas, and 29% more oil in 2030 than it was possible to burn if global temperature rise was to be kept to the internationally agreed 1.5C. The plans would also produce 69% more fossil fuels than is compatible with the riskier 2C target.

The countries responsible for the largest carbon emissions from planned fossil fuel production are India (coal), Saudi Arabia (oil) and Russia (coal, oil and gas). The US and Canada are also planning to be major oil producers, as is the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is hosting the crucial UN climate summit Cop28, which starts on 30 November. The report sets out starkly the fundamental conflict driving the climate crisis: fossil fuel burning must rapidly be cut down to zero, yet petrostates and companies intend to keep on making trillions of dollars a year by increasing production.

EDIT

After Saudi Arabia, the US, Brazil and Canada have the next biggest oil expansion plans and the Cop28 host UAE is seventh on the list. Qatar has the biggest gas expansion plans and Nigeria is third, after Russia. India’s coal expansion plans are enormous: three times that of second-placed Russia, with Indonesia in third and Australia in fifth. Overall, only four countries have plans under which overall emissions from the fossil fuels they produce would fall: the UK, China, Norway and Germany. The report said relying on uncertain future technology to capture CO2 and put it back underground was risky: “Countries should aim for a near total phase-out of coal production and use by 2040, and a combined reduction in oil and gas production and use by three-quarters by 2050, at a minimum.”

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report