New Data Shows Just Four Global North Countries Responsible for Derailing Oil and Gas Phase-out Progress since Paris Agreement

Just four Global North countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Norway, are overwhelmingly responsible for blocking global progress on phasing out oil and gas production, according to new analysis from Oil Change International titled Planet Wreckers: Global North Countries Fueling the Fire Since the Paris Agreement.

While the rest of the world reduced oil and gas production between 2015 and 2024, massive expansion in these “Planet Wrecker” countries caused total global output to rise since the Paris Agreement. On top of this, all Global North countries as a whole have failed to pay the climate finance they owe, slowing climate action in the rest of the world while protecting the profits of key drivers of the climate crisis: polluters and the super-rich.

Between 2015 and 2024, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Norway, collectively increased their oil and gas production by nearly 40 percent, adding over 14 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d). In the same period, extraction in the rest of the world fell by 2 percent, cumulatively.

This contrast is striking and critically important as nations prepare to converge at COP30 to negotiate the next phase of the global climate agenda.

The U.S. alone accounts for over 90 percent of the net global increase in extraction through 2024, driving up its production by nearly 11 million boe/d - more than five times as much as any other country.

Time is running out. If fossil fuel-driven carbon pollution continues at today’s pace, the world will burn through its remaining carbon budget in just three years. The science is clear: keeping the 1.5°C limit in reach requires ending fossil fuel expansion and rapidly phasing out oil, gas, and coal production and use. The legal case for this has also been recently bolstered by international courts, including the International Court of Justice.

Unsurprisingly, the four countries with an outsized responsibility for driving up oil and gas since the Paris Agreement are also collectively planning to expand the most over the next decade. Previous Oil Change International analysis also warns that these four Global North producers are the same “Planet Wrecker” countries driving the majority of the world’s planned oil and gas expansion through to 2035, in terms of production dependent on new fields and fracking wells.

Just as predictably, all Global North governments as a whole have shirked paying the finance they owe to enable climate action in the Global South, instead pursuing policy agendas that further entrench the power and profits of fossil fuel companies and the super-rich. Since the Paris Agreement, Global North governments have provided just $280 billion in climate finance on grant-equivalent terms, a fraction of the $1 to $5 trillion annual need. Meanwhile, they have enabled the oil and gas companies headquartered in their countries to make at least $1.3 trillion in profits – around 5 times as much as Global North countries paid in climate finance.

Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International, said:

“Ten years ago in Paris, countries promised to limit warming to 1.5°C, which is impossible without putting an end to fossil fuel expansion and production. The rich countries most responsible for the climate crisis have not kept that promise. Instead, they’ve poured more fuel on the fire and withheld the funds needed to put it out.

“The fact that a handful of rich Global North countries, led by the United States, have massively driven up their oil and gas production while people around the world suffer the consequences is a blatant mockery of justice and equity. These countries have a moral and legal obligation to move first to phase out fossil fuels, and deliver the trillions needed in climate finance on fair terms to the Global South. Anything less is a betrayal of science and abdication of responsibility.

“But all is not lost. More and more countries are pushing to end the era of fossil fuels, as demonstrated by the first global conference on fossil fuel phase-out that the government of Colombia will convene in 2026. The first step will be for governments meeting at COP30 in Belém to deliver a collective roadmap for equitable, differentiated fossil fuel phase-out dates, and address the systemic barriers preventing Global South countries from transitioning to renewable energy, including finance.”