There climate crisis advances and the oil and gas industries continue to authorize numerous new projects, pushing the goal of limiting global warming further away from 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
It has just been published on “Drilling Deeper“, an update from the Global Energy Monitor to its annual Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker 2024 that demonstrates how the ominous target is quadruple oil and gas permits.
Last year, globally, oil and gas producers permitted and discovered the equivalent of all oil reserves verified in Europe. The objective, in fact, is to quadruple the authorized quantity by the end of the decade, despite the scientific consensus on the fact that the development of new deposits is incompatible with scenarios aimed at limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°C , according to a new report from Global Energy Monitor.
At least 20 deposits they achieved investment approval in 2023, with the extraction of eight billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). By the end of the decade, the companies aim to reach nearly four times that amount – 31.2 billion boe in 64 additional fields. Additionally, 19 new fields containing approximately 7.7 buoys were discovered in 2023.
Already in 2021 the IEA had warned that no new oil and gas fields were needed to stay within a 1.5°C scenario but this warning had no results. Since 2021, ignoring warnings, oil and gas producers have permitted a total of at least 16.5 billion boe across 48 projects and discovered at least 20.3 billion boe across 50 projects.
The Americas accounted for nearly 40% of all oil and gas projects permitted in 2022 and 2023 while Guyana, Iran and Namibia accounted for the most significant discoveries in 2023.
Scott Zimmerman, Project Manager at the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker, said: “Oil and gas producers have given all kinds of reasons to continue discovering and developing new fields, but none of them are valid. The science is clear: no new oil and gas deposits, or the planet will be pushed beyond its capacity.”
