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Oil production in the USA
Photo: Andrew Burton / Getty Images
The global projects to promote fossil fuels are still incompatible with the goals of the Paris Agreement. This is the result of a report published on Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The annual Production Gap Report finds that, while the governments of the top 15 industrialized and emerging countries have made ambitious commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they plan to produce twice as much coal, gas and oil by 2030 as the 1, 5 degree path allows. In Paris in 2015, the global community agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, if possible.
Even the less ambitious goal of stopping global warming below two degrees by the end of the century would be exceeded, the study said.
"The research results are clear: The production of coal, oil and gas must immediately drop sharply in order to limit long-term warming to 1.5 degrees," said the lead author of the report, Ploy Achakulwisut of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI).
"Nonetheless, the governments are planning production quantities that are vastly above what we can safely incinerate."
According to the researcher, governments want to produce around 240 percent more coal, 57 percent more oil and 71 percent more natural gas by 2030 than would be compatible with the 1.5 degree target. In addition, the study also comes to the conclusion that the 15 states have invested more in new fossil fuel projects than in clean energy since the beginning of 2020. The discrepancy between the climate targets and plans to promote fossil fuels - the so-called output gap - will widen until at least 2040, according to the report. This would require increasingly extreme measures to meet the Paris emissions target.
The countries examined in the report are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
For the United States, oil and gas production has been found to grow 17 percent and 12 percent by 2030, compared to 2019, according to government projections.
Much of that would be exported, meaning the emissions from burning these fossil fuels would not show up in the US inventory, even though they would add to total global emissions.
In contrast, coal production in the US is expected to decline by 30 percent over the next ten years compared to 2019.
From the end of October, the governments will negotiate at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow on how climate protection can be advanced.
There is still time to limit long-term warming to 1.5 ° Celsius, but this time window is quickly closing, according to Unep Director Inger Andersen.
She added that governments should commit to closing the gap at the Glasgow climate summit.
joe / AFP / Reuters