UN: Fossil fuel production will double what is recommended for the climate by 2030

Nairobi, Nov 8 (EFE).- Governments around the world plan to produce by 2030 more than double the maximum amount of fossil fuels that would keep global warming below the limit of 1.5 degrees established in the Paris Agreement (2015). The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned today.

“Governments’ plans to expand fossil fuel production are undermining the energy transition necessary to achieve net zero (greenhouse gas) emissions, putting the future of humanity in doubt,” Inger Andersen, director of executive of this UN agency, based in Nairobi.

UNEP revealed these data in the new edition of the Production Gap Report, published this Wednesday and prepared together with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI, in English), the organization Climate Analytics and the European think tank E3G.

The study compares the production of coal, oil and gas planned by governments with the levels recommended to meet the established limits on temperature increase that seek to avoid even more devastating effects of the climate crisis.

The plans of twenty governments analyzed in the report would involve producing around 110% more fossil fuels by 2030 compared to what is necessary to avoid a warming of 1.5 degrees and 69% more compared to a rise of 2 degrees.

Among the countries examined are some of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, from Australia, Brazil and the United States to Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, including China, Nigeria, South Africa, Colombia and Mexico.

“Most of these governments continue to provide significant financial and legislative support for fossil fuel production,” UNEP noted.

In fact, although seventeen governments have committed to achieving net zero emissions and many have promoted initiatives to reduce them, none of them have committed to reducing coal, oil and gas production to achieve climate goals.

Thus, the plans of these governments would mean an increase in global coal production at least until 2030 and global oil and gas production at least until 2050.

“We see many governments promoting fossil gas as an essential ‘transition’ fuel, but with no apparent plans to abandon it later,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, a SEI scientist and one of the report’s lead authors.

The document also emphasizes that an “equitable” energy transition must “recognize the different responsibilities and capacities of countries.”

“Governments with the greatest capabilities to abandon fossil fuel production have the greatest responsibility to do so while also providing funding and support to help other countries do the same,” said Michael Lazarus, another author of the study and director of the US headquarters of the SEI.

Andersen called on countries to come together to support a “controlled and equitable phase-out of coal, oil and gas” at the upcoming UN Climate Change Summit (COP28), which begins on November 30 in the city. Dubai and is the main political forum on climate. EFE

lbg/pa /cc