Research

Between 2016, following the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, and June 2021, public and private financial institutions poured at least $132 billion in lending and underwriting into 964 gas, oil and coal projects in West, East, Central and Southern Africa. The vast majority of this finance came from financial institutions based outside Africa, both commercial banks and public institutions such as development banks and Export Credit Agencies.

This briefing gives financial institutions an overview of the IEA's first 1.5°C-aligned scenario and what it means for oil and gas. We show that the IEA's conclusion about ending new oil and gas field development is not a product of scenario design; it’s the arithmetic of 1.5°C.

This briefing reveals that over the last 10 years, the Norwegian government awarded as many exploration licenses (700) as in the 47 years prior, making Norway Europe’s most aggressive explorer for new oil and gas. Norway claims to be a climate leader, but its actions suggest otherwise.

In this six-part series, we explore the ongoing oil, gas, and petrochemical boom in the Permian Basin and Gulf Coast. It is a story of runaway toxic infrastructure, environmental injustice, and climate overshoot.

Asia is one of the few remaining growth markets for gas. The fossil fuel industry and its proponents are pushing to develop $379 billion of gas terminals, pipelines and power plants in Asia over the next decade. Roughly three-quarters of all Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) import terminals in development globally are planned for Asia. This aggressive buildout ignores a simple truth.

The new report finds that wealthy nations — the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, and Australia — planning to approve and subsidize new fossil fuel projects which undermines their recent claims of leadership in addressing the climate crisis.

The assessment by Environmental Defence Canada and Oil Change International assesses eight of Canada’s top oil and gas producers, including Imperial (ExxonMobil) and Shell. It finds they are all on track to increase their oil and gas production in Canada, rather than planning a fair transition away from fossil fuels that are fuelling the climate crisis.

Our new report “Past Last Call: G20 public finance institutions are still bankrolling fossil fuels” looks at G20 country and MDB public finance for fossil fuels from 2018-2020 for the first time and finds they are still backing at least USD 63 billion per year in oil, gas, and coal projects.

The Sky’s Limit Africa assesses fossil fuel industry plans to sink USD $230 billion into the development of new extraction projects in Africa in the next decade — and USD $1.4 trillion by 2050. It finds these projects are not compatible with a safe climate future and that they are at risk of becoming stranded assets that leave behind unfunded clean-up, shortfalls of government revenue, and overnight job losses.

Stopping these fossil fuel projects would prevent a drastic increase in GHG pollution at a time when it is imperative to decrease emissions to meet domestic and international climate goals, including the Paris Agreement that President Biden rejoined.