Rising US-led Oil and Gas Activity Threatens to Destroy Paris Climate Goals

The world's fossil fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple their production due to new projects discovered and approved by the end of the decade, according to a new report.

oil activity
Despite the agreements, oil activity continues to increase.

The world's fossil fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of oil and gas extracted from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading a wave of activity that threatens to destroy agreed climate goals, according to a new report. . There cannot be new oil and gas infrastructure so that the planet does not exceed 1.5°C of global warming, above the pre-industrial era, previously stated the Agência Internacional da Energia (AIE).

Exceeding this warming threshold, agreed by governments under the Paris Climate Agreement, will have increasingly serious effects, such as heat waves, floods, droughts and others, scientists warned. But since the IEA's 2021 declaration, countries and major fossil fuel companies have moved forward with an abundance of new oil and gas activity.

Since then, at least 20 billion barrels of oil equivalent of new oil and gas have been discovered for future drilling, according to the new report from Global Energy Monitor, an NGO based in São Francisco.

Last year, at least 20 oil and gas fields were prepared and approved for extraction after their discovery, with the removal of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent being sanctioned.

By the end of this decade, according to the report, the fossil fuel industry intends to sanction almost four times this amount - 31 billion barrels of oil equivalent - in 64 new oil and gas fields.

There are several countries that have profitable sources of fossil fuels

The United States, which has produced more crude oil than any other country for the past six consecutive years, led new oil and gas projects in 2022 and 2023, according to the same report. Guyana came in second, with countries in the Americas accounting for 40% of all new oil projects sanctioned in the last two years.

Failure to even slightly slow the demand for new oil and gas risks dealing a fatal blow to already slim hopes that the world will stay below 1.5°C, a threshold scientists hope will be surpassed within of a decade.

oil companies
Emissions from an oil refinery in Houston, Texas. Source: Brandon Bell/Getty Images.

This statement comes at a time when the main oil and gas companies are not meeting or attenuating their own targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At a recent industry conference in Texas, the boss of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company, said people "should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas."

"Despite constant and clear warnings that no new oil and gas fields are 1.5ºC compatible, the industry continues to discover and approve new projects. It is disappointing. It shows a lack of supply-side commitment to climate objectives ." - Scott Zimmerman, project manager for Global Energy Monitor's global oil and gas extraction tracker.

The oil and gas infrastructure already in place will be enough to get the world above 1.5ºC, so the additional activity planned will only increase the global temperature further. According to the new report, since the 2021 IEA report, 45 projects have been sanctioned, with 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which is almost certainly an underestimate of future emissions, as it does not include extraction of "unconventional" resources, such as fracking for gas.

South America and Africa are hot spots when it comes to fossil resources

While the US has maintained its oil and gas heavyweight status with new discoveries, fossil fuel producers are now focusing on new areas of the globe for new production, with South America and Africa becoming hot spots for future projects.

Of the 22 countries with significant oil and gas discoveries in the last two years, four - Cyprus, Guyana, Namibia and Zimbabwe - were responsible for more than a third of the discoveries, despite having produced little or no oil and gas until recently.

Iran's Shahini gas field - reportedly holding 623 billion cubic metres of gas - is the largest single discovery in the last two years, followed by TotalEnergies' Venus project in Namibia. The Kodiak project in Alaska, overseen by Pantheon Resources, is the third-largest potential oil and gas field.

"Oil and gas producers have given all sorts of reasons for continuing to discover and develop new fields, but none of them are valid," Zimmerman said.

The science is clear: no new oil and gas fields, or the planet will be pushed beyond what it can handle.