Status: October 20, 2021 1:58 p.m.
The national plans to promote fossil fuels are still incompatible with the Paris climate protection goals. According to the UN environmental program, leading oil, gas and coal producers are even planning to increase production.
According to a recent study, countries around the world have to cut their coal, oil and gas production by more than half to preserve a chance that global warming will remain below a dangerous level. According to the United Nations (UN), governments around the world want to produce twice as much fossil fuels in 2030 as the Paris Climate Agreement allows. The gap between the planned fuel production and the 1.5 degree limit has not closed since 2019; The United Nations Environment Organization (UNEP) and leading research institutes announced that it could become even larger by 2040.
“Global coal, oil and gas production must decline immediately and sharply to limit long-term warming to 1.5 degrees,” said Ploy Achakulwisut, lead author of the report and a scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). “However, governments continue to plan and support fossil fuel production levels well above what we can safely burn.”
“Dangerously far from the Paris goals”
The UNEP study concludesthat despite their promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many states continue to plan to produce double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be compatible with the 2015 Paris Agreement to Combat Climate Change. According to this, around 110 percent more fossil fuels, 240 percent more coal, 57 percent more oil and 71 percent more gas should be produced in 2030.
The Paris Climate Agreement aims to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. But even the less ambitious goal of limiting global warming by the end of the century to two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times would be missed, according to UNEP. Because even then, the planned delivery volumes are a good 45 percent too high. With their plans, the countries are “dangerously far removed from the Paris goals”, it is said.
The report also concludes that the group of the 20 largest industrialized and emerging countries has invested around 300 billion US dollars (around 258 billion euros) in new fossil fuel projects since the beginning of 2020 – more than in renewable energy sources . “There is still time to limit long-term warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but this window of time is closing quickly,” said the head of the UN Environment Program, Inger Andersen. She appealed to governments to dedicate themselves to closing the gap at the world climate conference.
Germany is the world’s largest producer of lignite
Germany is contributing significantly to the increase in production, it said in the report. The Federal Republic currently remains the world’s largest producer of lignite, the most carbon-intensive type of coal. According to the resolutions of the Bundestag to phase out coal, the power plants can run until 2038.
For the USA, the scientists determined an increase in oil and gas production of 17 and 12 percent respectively by 2030 compared to 2019. Much of it is to be exported, which is why the emissions resulting from consumption would not be attributed to the USA, even though they raise the global level. U.S. coal production is expected to decrease 30 percent over the course of the decade compared to 2019.
From the end of October, the governments will be negotiating at the World Climate Conference in Scotland (COP26) on how they can actually meet the climate protection targets negotiated in Paris. There the governments must “take quick and immediate action” to ensure a fair transition to alternative energies, according to UNEP boss Anderson.