Research

The briefing reveals that new oil and gas production approved to date in 2022 and at risk of approval over the next three years could cumulatively lock in 70 billion tonnes (Gt) of new carbon pollution. This is equivalent to almost two years’ worth of global carbon emissions from energy at current levels, 17 percent of the world’s remaining 1.5°C carbon budget, or the lifecycle emissions of 468 coal power plants.

This briefing, "Japan's Dirty Secret: World's top fossil fuel financier is fueling climate chaos and undermining energy security," reveals that Japan is the world’s largest public financier of fossil fuel projects, providing 10.6 billion USD per year between 2019 and 2021. Japan has been leading the drive to expand gas consumption in Asia and is the world’s leading financier of gas infrastructure globally, spending USD 6.7 billion on gas projects on average each year between 2019 and 2021.

This report looks at G20 country and MDB traceable international public finance for fossil fuels from 2019-2021 and finds they are still backing at least USD 55 billion per year in oil, gas, and coal projects. This is a 35% drop compared to previous years (2016-2018), but still, almost twice the support provided for clean energy, which averaged only $29 billion per year.

From 2010-2021, the United States' trade and development finance institutions provided nearly five times as much support to fossil fuels as to renewables — over $51.6 billion for fossils compared to just $10.9 billion for renewables.

*Updated March 27, 2025* At the UN COP26 climate conference, signatories of the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) agreed to international public finance for fossil fuels. This briefing, which will be updated regularly as new policies come out and new signatories join the commitment, tracks implementation efforts and assesses whether countries are on track to keep their promise.

Since May 2021, Shell has expressed interest to develop ten new oil and gas extraction assets, which could lock in additional CO2 pollution (325 million metric tonnes) two times greater than the Netherlands’ total CO2 emissions in 2021.

Approving new gas pipelines and liquified natural gas export facilities would lead to hundreds of millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year for decades to come.

This paper outlines priorities for the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) and its members that were identified by civil society groups to turn what has remained a largely aspirational diplomatic initiative into a force for increased climate action in line with equity, justice, and science.

The Mountain Valley Pipeline will not enable U.S. LNG exporters to export more gas to Europe, is not needed in the Southeast, and will increase GHG emissions and make it harder to reach our climate targets. MVP is a false solution looking for a problem. It’s out of date and out of time.

Our new report finds that Cheniere’s new lifecycle emissions tags appear to be pinned to a misleading methane emissions analysis that woefully undercounts actual leakage volumes.