NGOs note 28 new ‘carbon bomb’ projects since 2021

Potential CO2 emissions from new projects 11 times global “carbon budget” remaining to hit Paris Agreement targets.

Twenty-eight new “carbon bomb” projects have launched across the globe over the past five years, according to a report issued by NGOs.

Despite global efforts to phase out the use of fossil fuels, known to have catastrophic climate effects, the report, published on Monday by a quartet of environmental nonprofits, details that dozens of new fossil fuel extraction projects that will pump out enormous emissions have been started since 2021.

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Carbon bombs were defined in a 2022 research article as oil, gas or coal facilities capable of generating more than a billion tonnes of CO2 over their lifetime.

At that time, the NGOs Lingo, Data for Good, Reclaim Finance, and Eclaircies counted 425 such projects worldwide.

The report said some 365 projects are still producing more than one billion tonnes each, with the fall from the 2021 total due to operations that have either cut their output or been re-evaluated.

That is despite the International Energy Agency having said in 2021 that launching new oil and gas projects was incompatible with reaching climate targets set out in the Paris Agreement.

The landmark agreement reached in 2015 included the aim of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with the pre-industrial era.

Two years later, at COP28, countries around the world agreed to begin a phase-out of fossil fuels.

Despite that, between 2021 and 2024, the world’s 65 largest banks financed more than $1.6 trillion to the companies involved in the projects pinpointed in the report.

Barclays Bank is the most involved in supporting companies behind carbon bombs, providing $33.7bn to 62 companies, including Eni, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies.

“Major global banks are exacerbating climate change and future emissions by continuing to give carte blanche to these fossil fuel companies that are destroying the planet,” said Louis-Maxence Delaporte, energy research manager at Reclaim Finance, one of the NGOs involved in the study.

China accounts for 43 percent of “carbon bombs”. Russia accounts for 9 percent, the United States for 5 percent.

Western oil majors have the most such projects, although Saudi Arabia’s Aramco and China’s CHN Energy produce the most total 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 (2.7F) compared with the pre-industrial era, according to the authors’ calculations.