This data briefing analyzes the expansion plans of the oil and gas industry and assesses the compatibility with Paris climate goals. We primarily focus on the global expansion threat over the next five years (2020 to 2024). This short-term focus illustrates the urgent need for government, investor, business, and civil society action to chart a different course – to stop licensing and permitting new production and infrastructure and instead manage a swift and just phase-out of oil and gas extraction.
In terms of the global threat, three different metrics are summarized:
1. The investment the oil and gas industry intends to sink into developing new oil and gas fields and shale wells
between 2020 and 2024, which creates a carbon lock-in effect out to 2050;
2. The new production that would result from these expansion projects; and
3. The total cumulative carbon dioxide emissions that new financial investment decisions made over the next five years could unlock in coming decades.