Surge of New Oil and Gas Activity Threatens to Wreck Paris Climate Goals – A recent report reveals that the world’s fossil-fuel producers are set to dramatically increase the extraction of oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of the decade, nearly quadrupling current levels. The United States is leading this surge in activity, posing a significant threat to agreed-upon climate objectives.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has emphasized that in order to prevent global temperatures from exceeding 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels, there must be no further development of oil and gas infrastructure. Scientists caution that surpassing this critical warming threshold, as outlined in the Paris climate agreement, will lead to increasingly severe consequences such as heatwaves, floods, droughts, and more.
Despite the IEA’s proclamation in 2021, nations and significant fossil fuel corporations have persisted in pursuing an abundance of new oil and gas ventures. A recent report from Global Energy Monitor, an NGO headquartered in San Francisco, reveals that since then, there has been a discovery of at least 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent intended for future drilling.
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In the preceding year, a minimum of 20 oil and gas fields were prepared and authorized for extraction post-discovery, greenlighting the extraction of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. According to the report, by the decade’s end, the fossil fuel industry aims to authorize nearly four times this quantity—31 billion barrels of oil equivalent—across an additional 64 new oil and gas fields.
The report identifies the United States as the frontrunner in new oil and gas projects for the years 2022 and 2023, having surpassed all previous records by producing more crude oil than any other country in history for six consecutive years. Following closely, Guyana ranked second, with countries in the Americas contributing to 40% of all newly sanctioned oil projects over the past two years.
The relentless pursuit of new oil and gas reserves, without even a slight deceleration, jeopardizes the already fragile prospects of keeping global temperatures below the 1.5C mark—a threshold expected to be surpassed within the next decade, according to scientists.
This trend unfolds alongside major oil and gas companies missing or diluting their own targets for reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. At a recent industry conference in Texas, the CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, asserted that people should abandon the notion of phasing out oil and gas, characterizing it as a fantasy.
“Despite the constant and clear warnings that no new oil and gas fields are compatible with 1.5C, the industry continues to discover and sanction new projects,” said Scott Zimmerman, project manager of the global oil and gas extraction tracker at Global Energy Monitor. “It’s disappointing. It shows a lack of supply-side commitment to climate goals.”
The existing oil and gas infrastructure alone is poised to propel the world beyond the 1.5C threshold, and the additional planned activity will exacerbate global temperature rise even further. According to the recent report, a total of 45 projects, accounting for 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent, have been fully sanctioned since the 2021 IEA report. However, this figure is likely an underestimate of future emissions, as it excludes “unconventional” extraction methods like fracking.
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While the United States has upheld its prominent position in the oil and gas sector with recent findings, attention from fossil fuel producers is now shifting towards new regions across the globe, particularly focusing on South America and Africa for upcoming projects. Out of the 22 countries that have made significant oil and gas discoveries in the past two years, four—Cyprus, Guyana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe—have contributed to more than a third of these discoveries, despite having had limited or no previous oil and gas production.
The Shahini gas field in Iran, reportedly holding 623 billion cubic meters of gas, stands as the largest single discovery in the past two years, followed by TotalEnergies’ Venus project in Namibia. The Kodiak project in Alaska, managed by Pantheon Resources, ranks as the third-largest potential new oil and gas field. “Oil and gas producers have given all kinds of reasons for continuing to discover and develop new fields, but none of these hold water,” said Zimmerman. “The science is clear: no new oil and gas fields, or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle.”
