Oil and gas investment vastly outstrips loss and damage aid: NGO

Oil and gas investment vastly outstrips loss and damage aid: NGO
by AFP Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) Nov 13, 2024

The oil and gas sector's production hit an all-time high last year with annual investment in deposit exploration averaging $61.1 billion (57.5 billion euros) between 2022 and 2024, German NGO Urgewald said in a report Tuesday, contrasting how that outstrips government climate damage pledges.

The report comes amid the COP29 meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan where a crucial challenge is how developed nations can agree on a new financial aid target to assist the developing world to manage ecological transition in the face of climate change.

In its Global Oil & Gas Exit List, Urgewald compared the $61.1 billion spend on gas and oil with financial aid to the most vulnerable countries affected by global warming, noting world leaders have pledged to pay a mere $702 million to the fund compensating for "loss and damage" in these countries.

Based on data from companies and specialised analysis firms, the list includes 1,769 active companies in the oil and gas industry covering 95 percent of the world's hydrocarbon production, according to Urgewald.

"It is perverse to see companies shelling out tens of billions of dollars each year to search for new oil and gas reserves that will lead to even more loss and damage in the future," said Tinaye Mabara, of the Agape Earth Coalition, quoted in the report.

Mabara blasted "the paltry sums governments have pledged to the Loss and Damage Fund (which) are only a small fraction of what Big Oil spends to make things worse. World leaders need to make polluters pay and direct this money towards a just transition for all."

Created at COP28 in Dubai, the Loss and Damage Fund is intended to support countries particularly vulnerable to climate change-related devastation emanating from events such as floods and hurricanes which have become more common amid global warming blamed on the release of fossil fuels.

Now almost operational, the fund is preparing a first disbursement next year, its managers announced on Tuesday in Baku after it received around $700 million in pledges from rich countries including Germany, France, the United Arab Emirates and Denmark.

With 2023 having been the hottest year on record Urgewald said the listed firms produced 55.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, the highest level on record, which Urgewald's head of oil and gas research Nils Bartsch deemed "deeply concerning."