GLOBAL POLICY
The Paris climate goals demand a rapid, just transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. We’re pushing governments to lead the way by adopting policies to end oil and gas production.
OVERVIEW OF WORK
In order to achieve climate goals, governments and other decision makers must support a just and equitable move away from fossil fuels. We are pushing for precedent-setting leadership from governments to put policies in place to manage the decline of oil and gas and ensure a just transition for fossil-fuel dependent workers and communities.
Building from a growing group of first mover governments, we are pressuring for increasing numbers of national and regional governments to end new licenses and permits for oil and gas production, and to develop plans to wind down their existing production over time.
LATEST PROGRAM POSTS
Japan is continuing to drive the expansion of fossil fuels across Asia and is derailing the transition to renewable energy. This harms communities and ecosystems, undermines energy security, and worsens the climate crisis. The facts speak for themselves.
A letter delivered to U.S. President Biden from 560+ organizations around the world applauded Biden's decision to halt pending LNG export approvals and called on him to expand the pause to halt all permitting of new LNG infrastructure and export projects.
Last month, it was widely reported that another chapter in Shell’s dirty and disastrous eighty-seven-year operations in the Niger Delta was coming to an end, with the company selling its onshore business.
While Manchin and his industry allies spread tired old myths about America saving the world from Putin and Chinese coal plants, the reality is the energy transition is already moving away from gas faster than most people think. That action needs to focus on a phase-out of all fossil fuel exports and protections and reparations for the frontline communities.
LATEST PROGRAM RESEARCH
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.
These briefings reveal that Total, Eni, and Equinor are on the cusp of approving a surge of new oil and gas development. If they proceed with all the projects in their anticipated pipeline for 2023, Eni could rank as the world’s third worst oil and gas expander this year and Equinor as the world’s eighth worst by the total volume of new reserves approved for extraction.