Oil and gas extraction will quadruple: this is how multinationals are sinking the Paris climate agreement

The fossil industry aims to exploit 64 new sites by 2030, it will be impossible to keep global warming within the 1.5°C threshold

ROME – By the end of this decade not only will the consumption of fossil fuels continue, but oil and natural gas multinationals will quadruple extraction activities, breaking the goal of keeping global warming within the 1.5°C threshold, as set out in the Paris Climate Agreement. The Global Energy Monitor (Gem), an NGO based in California, denounces this dynamic.

The researchers developed their prediction not only by observing current production trends, but also new mining projects. Various governments around the world have in fact given the green light to the exploitation of new oil and natural gas deposits, twenty of which will be in 2023 alone. The fossil industry aims to exploit 64 new sites by 2030, which will be worth around 31 billion barrels.

The Gem report, citing data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA), reports that the latter country is the leader of this policy: only in the last six years has the USA produced a record quantity of crude oil, never before recorded by any other nation. In 2023, production reached 12.9 million barrels per day. “Together – writes the EIA – Last year the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia accounted for 40% of global crude oil production“, equal to 32.8 million barrels per day.

A “very disappointing” dynamic, as Scott Zimmerman, Gem project manager, declared: “Despite constant and clear warnings that no new oil and gas fields are compatible with 1.5°C, the industry continues to discover and approve new projects”. According to Zimmerman, the behavior of governments and fossil multinationals demonstrates “a lack of commitment to climate objectives”.