Some 28 so-called carbon bomb fossil fuel extraction projects have begun operating since 2021 despite their catastrophic climate impact, a group of NGOs warned Monday.
Carbon bombs were defined in a 2022 research article as oil, gas or coal facilities capable of generating more than a billion tons of CO2 each over their lifetime. The authors at the time counted 425 of these projects worldwide.
The year 2021 is significant because that is when the International Energy Agency said launching new oil and gas projects was incompatible with reaching climate targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Two years later at COP28, countries around the world agreed to begin a phase-out of fossil fuels.
The NGOs making the latest count are Lingo, Data for Good, Reclaim Finance, and Eclaircies.
They say some 365 projects are still producing more than one billion tonnes, with the different count due to operations that have either cut their output or been re-evaluated.
China accounts for 43 percent of these “carbon bombs”, Russia nine percent and the United States five percent.
Western oil majors have the most projects, but Saudi Aramco and China’s CHN Energy produce the most emissions.
The report also identified more than 2,300 smaller extraction projects, approved or launched since 2021, whose potential emissions exceed five million tonnes of CO2 each, equivalent to the annual emissions of a city like Paris.
Combined, the potential CO2 emissions from all these projects are 11 times greater than the global “carbon budget” remaining to keep global warming below 1.5C compared to the pre-industrial era, according to the authors’ calculations.
This temperature target in the Paris Agreement is on track to be exceeded this decade, according to climate scientists.
Yet, between 2021 and 2024 the world’s 65 largest banks financed more than $1.6 trillion to companies involved in the projects pinpointed in the report.
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