Production Gap Report
Kjell Kühne
Summary: The Production Gap Report highlights the concerning gap between Paris goals and countries’ plans for fossil fuel production and ways to close it. The report reviews across 10 fossil-fuel-producing countries – the US, Canada, Russia, Australia, Norway, the UK, Germany, China, India, and Indonesia -- the policies and actions that expand fossil fuel production and, in turn, widen the gap. It also provides policy options that can help countries better align production with climate goals. This is especially relevant over the next year, as countries prepare new or updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which set out their new emission reduction plans and climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. It produced together by SEI, IISD, ODI, CICERO, Climate Analytics, and UNEP with contributions by over fifty researchers, spanning numerous universities and additional organizations.
Key messages:
- Governments are planning to produce about 50% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with a 2°C pathway and 120% more than would be consistent with a 1.5°C pathway.
- These planned levels of fossil fuel production are also inconsistent with the collective climate pledges under the Paris Agreement. As a consequence, the global production gap is even larger than the already-significant global emissions gap.
- The continued expansion of fossil fuel production – and the widening of the global production gap – is underpinned by a combination of ambitious national plans, government subsidies to producers, and other forms of public finance.
- Several governments have already adopted policies to restrict fossil fuel production, providing momentum and important lessons for broader adoption.
- International cooperation plays a central role in winding down fossil fuel production.