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oil change international
‘Reckless’ Countries to Extract More Than Double the Fossil Fuels Consistent With 1.5°C
“It’s astonishing that in the two years since countries agreed in Dubai to transition off fossil fuels, the US is leading the abandonment of affordable renewables for deadly oil and gas," said one advocate.
Sep 22, 2025
Climate advocates on Monday said a new report from three climate think tanks reveals how "just how reckless" some of the world's biggest polluters are when it comes to oil, gas, and coal extraction—which they are planning to ramp up in the coming years despite pledging to take steps to avoid catastrophic fossil-fueled planetary heating a decade ago.
Ten years after the Paris agreement on keeping global warming well below 2°C and just two years after the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), where countries agreed for the first time to transition "away from fossil fuels," the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) joined Climate Analytics and the International Institute for Sustainable Development in releasing its latest Production Gap Report—and revealed that powerful governments are in fact moving in the opposite direction.
"Governments plan to produce 120% the volume of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, and 77% more than would be consistent with 2°C," the report found.
In their last analysis in 2023, the groups found a 110% and 69% gap over the 1.5°C and 2°C limits, respectively.
The groups analyzed the 20 largest producers of fossil fuels around the world—including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Russia, and Canada—that are responsible for 80% of fossil fuel extraction.
Only three of the countries—Norway, the UK, and Australia—currently have plans to reduce oil and gas production by 2030 compared with 2023 levels. Eleven of them—including the US, Germany, and Saudi Arabia—are planning for higher production of at least one type of fossil fuel.
"Trump is fulfilling his dream of petrostate authoritarianism, backed by oil and gas billionaires. Unless we fight to stop it, the whole world is going to pay the price."
Derik Broekhoff, the lead author of the report and a senior scientist at SEI, said in a statement that "while many countries have committed to a clean energy transition, many others appear to be stuck using a fossil-fuel-dependent playbook, planning even more production than they were two years ago.”
The authors stressed that fossil fuel-producing countries are persisting in oil, gas, and coal extraction even as industries know "fossil fuels are on their last legs."
"Clean energy attracted $2 trillion in investment last year—$800 billion more than fossil fuels, and a 70% increase since the Paris agreement," reads the report. "In 2024, 92% of new global power capacity came from renewables, which undercut fossil fuels on price, efficiency, and emissions—even with subsidies artificially keeping fossil fuel prices down."
Neil Grant, a senior expert at Climate Analytics, noted that less demand for fossil fuels could make them cheaper, which could prolong the transition to renewable energy that the vast majority of the world population supports, according to one poll last year.
"We are in the foothills of an energy transition that is going to reshape fossil fuel demand,” Grant told The Guardian. “But many governments are thinking in terms of a world where the energy transition happens very incrementally. There’s a lot of danger, [including that] the voice of the fossil fuel lobby only gets louder and holds us back from this change to a cleaner, better, greener economy. That would lead to climate chaos or significant negative economic impacts.”
"Governments are blundering backwards towards our fossil past," said Grant in a statement, but "rapid reductions are possible, feasible, and they would make our lives better."
Emily Ghosh, a program director at SEI, warned that to limit planetary heating to 1.5°C, "fossil fuel production should have peaked and started to fall."
"Every year of delay significantly increases the pressure," she told The Guardian, adding that a "course correction" is urgently needed.
Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed to US President Donald Trump's climate policy, including his move to end tax credits for solar panels and electric vehicles and to cancel the construction of an offshore wind farm.
"Trump is fulfilling his dream of petrostate authoritarianism, backed by oil and gas billionaires. Unless we fight to stop it, the whole world is going to pay the price," said Su.
“This report shows just how reckless the U.S. and other countries are in doubling down on fossil fuels,” she added. “It’s astonishing that in the two years since countries agreed in Dubai to transition off fossil fuels, the U.S. is leading the abandonment of affordable renewables for deadly oil and gas."
Kelly Trout, research director at Oil Change International, emphasized that "it is not yet too late to act."
"With the US driving the majority of global projected oil and gas expansion over the next decade, governments must resist bowing to the Trump administration’s pro-fossil fuel agenda, and instead seize the chance to rapidly shift course," said Trout. "Countries can still deliver the just energy transition away from fossil fuels they promised us two years ago, with other rich Global North producers taking the lead."
The report was released as Colombia announced at the UN General Assembly its intention to host the First International Conference for the Phaseout of Fossil Fuels, aligning with the International Court of Justice's historic advisory opinion this year recognizing countries' legal obligation to protect the climate.
As advocates called for the Production Gap Report to be "both a warning and a guide," Tzeporah Berman of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said Colombia had signaled "a bold and necessary step towards climate leadership."
"This conference offers a vital opportunity to translate growing support into concrete action," said Berman, "accelerating our shift towards a more sustainable and just energy future for all."
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'Paying for Climate Chaos': Report Exposes $35 Billion a Year in US Handouts to Big Oil
"It's time to stop paying polluters to wreck our planet," said one environmental advocate.
Sep 09, 2025
Research and advocacy organization Oil Change International on Tuesday released a new report documenting the massive subsidies that fossil fuel companies receive from the US government every year.
The report, titled "Paying for Climate Chaos," found that the government will hand out $34.8 billion to big oil and gas companies this year, and that these companies are set to get almost an additional $4 billion in subsidies thanks to the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" passed by congressional Republicans and signed into law by US President Donald Trump earlier this year.
Among the added benefits fossil fuel companies receive from the GOP's budget law are $1.2 billion in the form of reduced royalty rates for extracting oil and gas on public lands; $720 million from a delay in the implementation of a per-ton methane emissions fee; and $359 million from the expansion of a corporate tax exemption to include categories such as carbon capture and hydrogen storage.
The report found that total subsidies to fossil fuel companies had grown significantly since Oil Change International first began studying the issue back in 2017 when subsidies totaled a comparatively modest $20 billion.
What's more, it noted that the price tag for these subsidies only looks set to increase over the next decade.
"Many subsidies identified are projected to soar over the next decade and beyond," Oil Change International writes. "If federal leaders fail to act, fossil fuel production subsidies could skyrocket to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This is due to the recent introduction of new subsidies for carbon capture, utilization, and storage and hydrogen, which increase fossil fuel production."
The report concluded by urging federal lawmakers to repeal the billions handed out in fossil fuel subsidies every year, including the recently passed ones for carbon capture and fossil hydrogen. It also said a future administration should "end subsidies across federal agencies, including the US Department of Energy, US Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management," and others.
Collin Rees, US campaign manager for Oil Change International, called these subsidies particularly wasteful in light of cuts Republicans made to programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program as part of their budget law.
"Congress must stand up to big oil and gas, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, and redirect those billions toward the things our communities actually need: healthcare, housing, and clean, affordable, renewable energy," he said. "It's time to stop paying polluters to wreck our planet. The Trump administration's fossil-fueled corruption and attacks on working people provide an opportunity for a new agenda grounded in a bold vision to end the fossil fuel era."
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'A Call to Conscience': Damning Report Shows Every Major US LNG Project Fails Climate Test
"What we found was crystal clear—any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate."
Jul 09, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump ramps up fossil fuel production under his "drill, baby, drill" energy policy, a report published Wednesday highlights the climate and financial harms posed by new liquefied natural gas export projects—all of which fail a "climate test" that the Department of Energy issued during the Biden administration.
The report—published by Greenpeace USA, Earthworks, and Oil Change International—examines five major U.S. LNG projects: Venture Global CP2, Cameron LNG Phase II, Sabine Pass Stage V, Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG Midscale 8-9, and Freeport LNG Expansion.
Instead of giving into Trump’s pressure to import + finance more LNG, leaders must invest in a just transition to renewable energy that will protect our communities from deadly pollution and climate disasters. Learn more: www.greenpeace.org/usa/failing-...
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— Oil Change International (@oilchange.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 6:57 AM
All but one of the projects is awaiting a final investment decision. None passes a "climate test" derived from the Department of Energy's (DOE) December 2024 LNG export public interest studies, as they all would result in a net increase in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regardless of sustainability measures including supply basin switching, LNG terminal methane abatement, and powering liquefaction with renewable electricity.
"Increasing LNG exports from the Gulf Coast would still lead to global GHG emissions increases above the level consistent with the DOE's most stringent climate mitigation scenario," the report states. Data suggests "no realistic mitigation can make U.S. LNG exports aligned with limiting warming to 1.5ºC," the more ambitious goal of the Paris climate agreement. Trump has twice withdrawn the United States from the landmark accord.
"What we found was crystal clear—any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate," Greenpeace USA senior research specialist Andres Chang, the report's lead author, said in a statement.
"The massive growth in infrastructure along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast has already created significant public health and ecosystem impacts, threatening entire coastal communities," Chang added. "But it doesn't stop there. This report shows that if built, these projects would put global climate goals even further out of reach."
"No realistic mitigation can make U.S. LNG exports aligned with limiting warming to 1.5ºC."
The United States is the world's leading natural gas producer and LNG exporter. While the fossil fuel industry often calls LNG a "bridge fuel"—a cleaner alternative to coal that will ease the transition to sustainable energy sources—critics have warned that the fossil gas actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Despite his own DOE's acknowledgment that approving more LNG exports would raise domestic energy prices, increase pollution, and exacerbate the climate crisis, former President Joe Biden oversaw what climate campaigners called a "staggering" LNG expansion, including Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass 2 export terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and more than a dozen other projects.
Trump—who during his 2024 campaign vowed to "frack, frack, frack; and drill, baby, drill" as fossil fuel interests poured $75 million into his campaign coffers—is planning to increase LNG exports even more, in part by invoking his bogus "energy emergency" to fast-track polluting projects.
A report published in January by Friends of the Earth and Public Citizen examined 14 proposed LNG export terminals that the Trump administration sought to fast-track and found they would create 510 million metric tons of climate pollution—equivalent to the annual emissions of 135 new coal plants.
Oil Change International noted Wednesday that "future administrations could revoke export authorizations that were rubber-stamped under Trump based on their failure to pass the DOE 'climate test,' which introduces a new layer of uncertainty to these already-risky projects."
The report also underscores that while the DOE climate test "is a major improvement upon previous federal analyses," its methodology "still fails to sufficiently account for emissions from large, accidental releases (such as 'super-emitter' events), equipment malfunction, and malpractice."
"High rates of methane emissions during the ocean transport stage of the LNG supply chain are also not represented," the report adds. "Incorporating measurement-based data and more realistic assumptions would make clearer the immense climate impact of building new liquefied gas infrastructure, especially in the near-term."
The report's authors call on the DOE to invoke the "climate test" to reject pending and future LNG export applications and exercise its authority under the Natural Gas Act "to reevaluate the public interest status of LNG projects that received authorizations without consideration of climate impacts or under analyses that predate the 2024 LNG Study."
The publication also calls on Congress to pass legislation "that makes it a statutory requirement under the Natural Gas Act to assess the climate impact of gas exports and reject applications that would increase global GHG emissions under a credible scenario to limit warming to 1.5ºC."
"Additionally, U.S. federal agencies should require all new proposed fossil fuel production and infrastructure projects to meet a similarly high standard under the National Environmental Policy Act," the report asserts.
"Energy purchasers, financial institutions, and foreign governments should refrain from entering into long-term offtake agreements for U.S. LNG and financing of LNG infrastructure," the authors wrote. "Instead, these parties should prioritize measures that accelerate the renewable energy transition and plan for a managed phase-out of fossil fuels. Group of Seven nations, in particular, should abide by their 2022 commitment to stop financing overseas fossil fuel infrastructure with taxpayer money."
James Hiatt, founder and director of the Lake Charles, Louisiana-based advocacy group For a Better Bayou, said Wednesday that "fossil fuel dependency has long externalized its true costs, forcing communities to bear the burden of pollution, sickness, and economic instability."
"For decades the oil and gas industry has known about the devastating health and climate impacts of its operations, yet it continues to expand, backed by billions in private and public financing," Hiatt continued. "These harms are not isolated—they're systemic, and they threaten all of us."
"This report is a call to conscience," he added. "It's time we stop propping up deadly false solutions and start investing in a transition to energy systems that sustain life, not sacrifice it."
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