World leaders pledged in 2015 to reduce emissions in a combined effort to limit climate change.
Now they are stepping up production of oil, gas and coal, which will have the opposite effect.
The top-20 energy-producing nations intend by 2030 to extract double the amount of fossil fuels that would be consistent with the threshold needed to keep warming in check.
The contradiction between climate promises and energy production is nowhere more evident than in the United Arab Emirates, which is set to host the annual climate summit known as COP28, opening Nov. 30.
Diplomats, environmentalists and business leaders will gather in Dubai to hash out how each nation will reach its climate goals and debate whether to issue a statement on phasing out fossil fuels in the coming years.
In July, U.A.E. officials said the country by 2030 would cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 19% compared with 2019. But the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. plans to boost oil production capacity to 5 million barrels a day by 2027 from the current 4 million barrels a day.
The company also plans to increase liquid natural gas production from the current 6 million metric tons a year to 15.6 million metric tons by 2028, according to a new report issued Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program, the nonprofit Stockholm Environment Institute and several other institutions.
The study analyzed 20 nations that produce 80% of the world’s energy. In 2015, world leaders met in Paris and pledged to slow coal, oil and gas production to keep the climate from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Even positive efforts by some nations will be canceled out by the actions of others.
By 2030, the U.S. expects to cut coal production by 43%, while China plans a 15% reduction. That drop will be overshadowed by new coal production in India, Indonesia and Russia, the report said.
Although the U.S. is phasing out coal, its oil production will reach, and remain at, record levels of 19 million to 21 million barrels a day between 2024 and 2050. U.S. natural gas is projected to increase continually, reaching 1.2 trillion cubic meters in 2050, the report said. Most of that oil and gas is for export.
The report relied on projections from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and publicly available documents.
Some nations have joined initiatives such as the Global Methane Pledge and the Net-Zero Producers Forum to reduce the greenhouse emissions that scientists say are responsible for climate change. While these agreements might make fossil-fuel production less polluting, they won’t put a big dent in overall emissions, according to Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the SEI and a lead author of the report.
“None of these initiatives mentioned the need to reduce fossil fuel production itself, and none of these countries have committed to reduce coal, oil and gas production in line with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees,” Lazarus said. “Most of these countries, especially those with significant oil and gas reserves, plan to increase production.”
Even though energy from carbon-free solar and wind power is making huge gains, the benefits are diminished by ongoing fossil fuel production, said Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author of the report and a research fellow at the SEI.
“Despite encouraging signs of an emerging clean energy transition, the persistence of the global production gap puts a well-managed and equitable energy transition at risk and conflicts with governments’ climate commitments,” Achakulwisut said.
Source: WSJ
