Study: Oil and gas companies continue to expand

Oil and gas companies are still on an expansion course despite worsening climate change, an updated database from the German research organization Urgewald showed on Tuesday.

The database includes more than 1,800 companies that are extracting oil and gas or are developing new fossil-fuel infrastructure.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai two years ago, also known as COP28, the global community agreed to move away from coal, oil and gas.

However, according to the data from Urgewald, investments in fossil-fuel infrastructure today are similar to the levels at the time of the agreement in Dubai.

For example, US companies are currently planning 125.06 gigawatts (GW) of new gas power plant capacities, followed by Chinese companies with 82.22 GW and Vietnamese companies with 44.86 GW.

In the planned construction of terminals for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the United States is also leading with 388.23 million metric tons per year, followed by Russia with 102.70 million tons annually, ahead of Mexico with 66.7 million and Qatar with 64 million tons per year.

According to Urgewald, the data refer to company plans, and government figures could differ if, for example, there are no project sponsors yet.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Paris 10 years ago, also known as COP21, decided to limit global warming to as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible compared to pre-industrial times. Currently, it is already around 1.4 degrees.

With ongoing global warming, events such as storms, droughts or floods are becoming more likely.