Threat of global warming, but approval of new oil and gas projects

The world's oil and gas-producing countries will almost quadruple the volume of oil and gas production from their newly approved projects by the end of this decade. American projects will contribute the most to this. This claim has been made in a new report by San Francisco-based NGO Global Energy Monitor. The report quotes the International Energy Agency's (IEA) warning in 2021, claiming that if the Earth's temperature is to be prevented from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, then no new oil and gas mining will be necessary. Infrastructure should not be built.

It is noteworthy that in the Paris Climate Agreement, it was agreed between the governments that violating the limit of 1.5 degrees of global warming will lead to heatwaves, floods, droughts and extreme weather conditions across the world, which will lead to loss of life on Earth. Difficult situations will arise. On the contrary, the world's major oil producers, including America, are rapidly approving new oil-gas projects. In these two years, a maximum of 40 per cent of new projects have been started in America only.

New oil-gas projects are being started contrary to the spirit of the Paris AgreementYear New projects allowed Reserve of billion barrels 2022 25 7.92023 20 8.0 Total 45 15.9 Exploration of more new oil and gas fields is ongoing according to the new report of Global Energy Monitor, IEA's At least 20 billion barrels of oil have been discovered thanks to oil and gas drilling since the 2021 warning. Among them, Guyana, Iran, Namibia, America and China are at the forefront. About 70 per cent of the new oil and gas fields have been discovered in these five countries. India's name is not on this list of 22 countries.

According to the report, by the end of the decade, the oil and gas mining industry is aiming to start mining 31 billion barrels of oil and gas from 64 new oil and gas fields. America is at the forefront in this, which has been continuously producing the most crude oil in the world for the last six years. America will sell more oil to India. With the increase in oil production, America is also looking for new customers for its oil. After sanctions on Russia, now India will also buy more crude oil from America. According to ship tracking data, more than 250,000 barrels of crude oil per day are set to arrive in India from the US next month, the highest in more than a year.