Despite climate pledges, Canada and other fossil fuel producers set to scale up production: report

Canada is among a group of top fossil fuel-producing countries that are on pace to extract more oil and gas than would be consistent with agreed-upon international targets designed to limit global warming, according to a new analysis.

The report, released on Wednesday by the United Nations in collaboration with a team of international scientists, found that countries still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be required to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

The findings are at odds with government commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement, as well as with projections by the International Energy Agency that global demand for coal, oil and gas will peak within this decade.

The report's authors said more money needs to be allocated toward the transition to clean energy and that the top producers need to work together to limit production.

"We find that many governments are promoting fossil gas as an essential 'transition' fuel but with no apparent plans to transition away from it later," Ploy Achakulwisut, a lead author of the report and a scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, said in a statement.

"Science says we must start reducing global coal, oil and gas production and use now — along with scaling up clean energy, reducing methane emissions from all sources and other climate actions — to keep the 1.5 C goal alive."

Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the Stockholm institute and another one of the report's authors, said in a statement that wealthier countries "with the greatest capacities to transition away from fossil fuel production bear the greatest responsibility to do so while providing finance and support to help other countries do the same."

In a briefing held before the report's release, the researchers argued that the continued production of fossil fuels would undermine the transition to cleaner forms of energy.

"Given that governments, production plans and targets helped to influence, legitimize and justify continued fossil fuel dependence, there is a real risk that such plans are undermining the energy transition by locking in long-lived fossil fuel infrastructure," Achakulwisut said.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has become increasingly outspoken in his calls for action on climate change, said the report is "a startling indictment of runaway climate carelessness."

The report, citing figures from the Canada Energy Regulator, shows Canada — the fourth-largest oil producer in the world — is set to increase production through 2030 if there is no further action to reduce emissions, and by 25 per cent above 2022 levels by 2035.

(Under a net-zero scenario, where countries hit their climate goals, Canada's oil production is projected to peak by 2026 and decline to 73 per cent below 2022 levels by 2050.)

The report notes that the federal and provincial governments have recently approved new oil and gas developments.

By contrast, other fossil fuel-producing countries, such as Norway and the United Kingdom, are projected to scale down production. (The United States, the largest producer of fossil fuels, is on track to increase production.)