Research

This briefing from Oil Change International shows that G7 countries, which have both the capacity and the responsibility to be leaders in phasing out fossil fuels, are not walking the walk – at home or abroad: some G7 countries are massively expanding fossil fuel production at home, while others are investing in more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad. Both are catastrophic failures of leadership, which the G7 has a responsibility to correct.

This briefing assesses Shell’s fossil fuel extraction plans in light of Shell's appeal of a Dutch court verdict requiring the company to take responsibility for its climate pollution. Our analysis shows that Shell continues to plan for levels of oil and gas production and investment that undermine the world’s chances of curtailing climate disaster.

Governments have spent over $20 billion – and have approved up to $200 billion more – of public money on carbon capture and storage (CCS), providing a lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. Almost 80% of operating carbon capture capacity globally sends captured CO2 to produce more oil via Enhanced Oil Recovery, while many of the world's largest CCS projects overpromise and underdeliver.

Oil and gas companies, and some governments, are more interested in looking like they're acting on climate change than actually acting. They spend billions on smoke and mirrors such as “carbon capture and storage,” “certified gas,” ammonia co-firing, and hydrogen when in reality, they are trying to build escape hatches to continue their dirty business as usual.

Despite the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels, Japan is driving the expansion of liquified gas (LNG) and other fossil-based technologies like ammonia co-firing, worsening the climate crisis and harming communities and ecosystems.

A new report analyzes how the Inflation Reduction Act fails to reduce fossil fuel production or alleviate impact on environmental justice communities, and that current policies will instead lead to a deadly increase in oil and gas production and exports.

This briefing, titled, Norway’s Electrification of Melkøya Gas Plant: The Perfect Storm of Climate Injustice, reveals not only the project's disastrous climate implications for the Norway and the Arctic, but also the human rights violations in the decades-long governmental oppression of the Indigenous Sámi people and their ancestral lands.

*Updated June 2024* Oil Change International analysis shows that several major countries continue to pump $6.2 billion in public finance into international fossil fuel projects despite committing to end this support by the end of 2022.

This new analysis, an update to the data in our landmark Sky's Limit series, finds that the majority of the fossil fuel reserves within active fields and mines must now stay in the ground. Using updated 2023 data, the proportion of coal, oil, and gas reserves that must remain unextracted to meet the 1.5°C limit has increased from nearly 40% in 2018 to almost 60% in 2023.

US non-profit Ceres has produced a paper aimed at explaining actions that oil and gas exploration and production companies (E&Ps) can take to reduce their emissions. It is also supposed to provide useful information on climate alignment to the sector’s investors and bankers. The paper suffers from a number of alarming weaknesses which threaten to reverse progress on setting standards for net-zero finance. Consequently, Reclaim Finance, Oil Change International, urgewald, CIEL, and Stand.Earth have jointly published this analysis in response.