Item Link: Access the Resource
File: Download
Date of Publication: November 8
Year of Publication: 2023
Publisher: SEI US
Author(s): SEI, Climate Analytics, E3G, IISD, and UNEP
Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises
Governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. The persistence of the global production gap puts a well-managed and equitable energy transition at risk.
Governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C, according to the 2023 edition of the Production Gap Report, titled, “Phasing down or phasing up? Top fossil fuel producers plan even more extraction despite climate promises.”
When combined, government plans would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030, and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050, creating an ever-widening fossil fuel production gap over time.
This comes despite 151 national governments having pledged to achieve net-zero emissions and the latest forecasts suggesting that global coal, oil, and gas demand will peak this decade, even without new policies. Meanwhile, the impacts of climate change, long predicted by scientists, are now manifesting and wreaking havoc in every corner of the planet, and fossil-fuel-derived CO2 emissions reached a record high in 2022.
This year’s report features two major updates to the production gap analysis, drawing on the new mitigation scenarios database compiled for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report and changes in government plans and projections since August 2021. The report also provides individual country profiles for 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries, evaluating governments’ latest climate ambitions and their plans, policies, and strategies that support fossil fuel production or the transition away from it.
Read the Executive Summary here and/or download the full report from the link above.
Watch the 2023 Production Gap Report launch event from 8 November 2023 below.
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