The United States-based Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a non-governmental organization which catalogs fossil fuel and renewable energy projects globally and shares, has issued a report which states that, going forward, oil and gas producers are seeking to quadruple their investments in the oil and gas sector despite the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) warning issued three years ago that new oil and gas fields are incompatible with the 1.5°C climate target. Guyana has been named as one of four countries (the other three being Cyprus, Namibia and Zimbabwe) from which over a third of the additional volumes are expected to come.
GEM also disclosed in its report that at least twenty (20) new oil and gas fields have secured the ‘green light’ to go ahead with oil recovery beyond the recommended limits, positions that essentially torpedo climate commitments which they had earlier made. GEM has openly expressed concern that the focus by global oil and gas companies on quadrupling proven reserves by 2030 essentially ‘tears up’ the understanding on limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C. The ‘green light’ given to the twenty new fields reportedly authorizes extraction of 8 billion (barrels of oil equivalent (boe)), according to the latest update entitled, Drilling Deeper in Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker by GEM.
According to the GEM report, “by the end of the decade, companies are aiming to sanction nearly four times that amount — 31.2 billion boe across 64 additional fields,” adding that “in addition, 19 new fields containing roughly 7.7 boe were discovered in 2023.” Commenting on the findings of the report, the Project Manager for the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker, Scott Zimmerman, is quoted as saying that, “ while “Oil and gas producers have given all kinds of reasons for continuing to discover and develop new fields… none of these hold water. The science is clear: No new oil and gas fields or the planet gets pushed past what it can handle.”
