Countries are on track to create a lot more than double the amount oil, gas and coal by 2030 than could be suitable for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C.
That is the conclusion of the UN Environment report, the first available to evaluate the gap between government intends to produce non-renewable fuels by 2030 and global production levels in line with experienceing this Paris Agreement goals.
Under the Paris regime, countries have produced climate plans to curb their emissions. But decarbonisation efforts are mostly focused on reducing fossil fuel consumption, through renewable sources, energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies, rather than curbing oil, gas and coal production levels.
Using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's scenarios, projections of planned production to 2030 would begin to see the world producing 53% more oil, gas and coal than can be burnt to limit warming to 2C by 2100 – the Paris deal's upper target.
The same projections show fossil fuel production levels are 120% higher than could be compatible within 1.5C pathway – the Paris Agreement's more ambitious target. That gap widens when looking at planned fossil fuel production to 2040.
Projections of fossil fuel production to 2030 also exceed the quantity of oil, gas and coal countries burns up to meet their current pledges to cut emissions, which add-up to more than 3C of warming.
Expected coal production presents the biggest gap, with countries currently on the right track to create 150% more coal by 2030, one more 5.2 billion tonnes, than is in line with keeping warming to 2C.
Investments locking in gas and oil use over the next decades could also widen the space, the report warned, with projections suggesting 43% more oil and 47% more gas could be made by 2040 than under Paris Agreement-compatible scenarios.
“Though many governments plan to decrease their emissions, they're signalling the opposite with regards to fossil fuel production, with plans and projections for expansion,” the report said.
UN Climate Change currently attributes emissions to countries where fossil fuels are burned, rather than where they're produced. The report notes the US, Russia and Canada are utilizing fossil fuel exports to justify increases within their oil, gas and coal production.
Meanwhile, India and china are striving to limit fossil fuel imports by scaling-up their domestic production.
The development of fossil fuel production has witnessed emissions continue to rise during the last decade, which UN Environment described inside a 10-year review published in September as “a lost decade for climate action”.
The review discovered that current levels of greenhouse gases are “almost exactly” at the same level as 2023 projections made 10 years ago under the UN agency's business-as-usual scenario, which was based on the assumption that no climate polices could be put in place after 2005.
Cleo Verkuijl, research fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute, which co-authored the report, told Climate Home News: “One from the key goals of this report would be to raise awareness of fossil fuel production in the climate conversation.”
Verkuijl has previously described the possible lack of measures to deal with the supply-side of emissions within countries' climate plans as “one of the Paris Agreement's biggest blind spot”.
Countries are due to review and update their climate plans after next year – making the following Twelve months critical for governments to increase ambition and boost the scope and scale of their targets.
Last year, UN Environment's emissions gap report discovered that countries had to triple their efforts to remain within the 2C limit.
In its latest report, published on Wednesday, the agency highlighted some measures governments can take to reverse the fossil fuel production trend, including limiting new exploration and ending subsidies to fossil fuel producers.
A number of countries recently developed such policies to deal with the supply side of emissions. New Zealand banned brand new offshore gas and oil exploration permits this past year, and Spain's government struck a deal with mining unions to close down the majority of the country's coal mines.
Other propositions range from the growth and development of an international accounting framework that will attribute emissions from the burning of non-renewable fuels to the producer country.
Political economist Andrew Simms, co-director from the New Weather Institute, and Peter Newell, professor of international relations in the middle for Global Political Economy, in the University of Sussex, UK, previously required the introduction of fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty to limit supply of non-renewable fuels.
