Send message to Authors

Presentation short abstract

To stand a chance of meeting the Paris goals, the world needs to cancel 10,000 oil and gas extraction licenses and 12,000 exploration licenses. We must urgently redefine international legal frameworks such that existing fossil-fuel licences can be revoked.

Presentation long abstract

The Paris Agreement requires to limit global warming to well below 2 °C, pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C to avoid exceeding the climate tipping points and their devasting effects for the world and humanity. The remaining carbon budget for a 50% chance of keeping warming to 1.5 °C is around 88 GtCO2 and, at current rates of emissions of about 42 GtCO2 per year mainly due to the use of fossil fuels, it will be completely exhausted by early 2028. In fact, burning existing fossil-fuel reserves from active oil and gas concessions and coal mines would result in 936 GtCO2. Therefore, the world must not only stop exploration for more fossil fuels and cease licensing new concessions but also decommission a huge portion of existing oil and gas concessions and coal mines.

In this study, we use Rystad Energy global oil and gas database and Global Coal Mine Tracker from Global Energy Monitor to quantify the number of fossil fuel contracts that need to be revoked to meet the climate targets. Alongside the immediate cancellation of all coal extraction mines, we need to cancel 86.6% of existing oil and gas concessions worldwide (10,000 extraction licenses and 12,000 exploration licenses). These findings highlight not only the magnitude of the structural changes required to align current fossil fuel operations with global climate goals, but also the urgent need to redefine international legal frameworks so that existing fossil-fuel licenses can be revoked.