Yesterday the Guardian’s campaign against the developed world’s wealth continued unabated. I was surprised by the heading in a profoundly campaigning article since it didn’t chime with what I understood to be the case: “Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion – The US and the UK among countries with low dependence on fossil fuels criticized for ‘hypocrisy’ on climate pledges”. I was aware that the Biden administration in the USA, for all its claims about the Inflation Reduction Act and its supposed “green” credentials, has licensed a lot of oil and gas exploration. However, the ongoing campaign by “green” campaigners in the UK against North Sea oil and gas exploration, a Conservative government that was always at best luke-warm about exploiting these declining reserves, and a new Labour government that is profoundly hostile to them, made me wonder at the deliberate inclusion of the UK in the headline. I was also aware that the greatest growth in fossil fuel use and extraction is in the Asia-Pacific region, while countries in Latin America and Africa are also keen to exploit their fossil fuel reserves, so I was surprised by the lack of focus on those areas.

So much for the eye-catching and anti-western heading. What did the article itself say?

The claims

A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.

The article concentrates on the number of licences issued in 2023, at 825 said to be the largest number since records began (we aren’t told when records began). The UK, USA, Canada, Norway and Australia are categorised as being responsible for 67% of all new oil and gas licences issued globally since 2020. This claim (as I indicated above) didn’t surprise me:

Under the Biden administration, the US has handed out 1,453 new oil and gas licences, accounting for half of the total globally and 83% of all licences handed out by wealthy nations. This is 20% more than during the term of Donald Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” should he return to the White House.

In a scraping the barrel sort of way, we are told rather desperately that in May 2024 the UK granted more oil and gas licences than any other country, though it is grudgingly conceded that “it is China, the world’s leading carbon emitter, that is forecast to approve the most oil and gas blocks in the rest of 2024.”

I am always suspicious of cherry-picked statistics cited without any context. So far we have been referred to the number of licences issued since 2020, and the number of licences issued in 2023, and the number of licences issued in the UK in May 2024. However, the focus on numbers of licences issued rather obscures the issue of how much oil and gas (and resultant greenhouse gas emissions) will follow from these licences. Read on far enough, and the truth is buried deep in the article:

The newly licensed reserves in rich countries – which are smaller and harder to reach because the larger reserves have already been exploited – could eventually generate 172m tonnes of CO2, the equivalent that would be produced by 43 new coal plants.

The reality as to what is going on elsewhere in the world is also revealed:

The world’s consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year…PetroChina, the Chinese state-owned oil and gas arm, has spent the most on both exploration and well development over the past decade…

Given all this, I wonder why the Guardian hates the west so much. The truth is revealed a bit further on – it’s all to do with an ongoing grievance about how ineffective the whole COP process is, with its vague and woolly promises, but no binding obligations and precious little action:

The data reveals a deep-seated inequity – and a key climate justice issue – that developing countries have for years tried to raise at the annual UN climate talks. In order to honour their legally binding [sic] obligations under the Paris agreement, developed countries must go first when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels, starting immediately, and stopping expansion plans.

Those, then, are the claims. Finding out the truth isn’t so easy, since the claims are said to be based on “new data shared exclusively with the Guardian”. Shared exclusively, and with no link offered to readers so that they may analyse the data themselves. However, the article does refer to “analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)”, so I visited the website of the IISD, and what I found casts a very interesting light on the highly selective claims made above.

The reality

The most up-to-date information I was able to find on the IISD website is contained in a piece of research with this heading: “July Edition – Carbon Minefields Oil and Gas Exploration Monitor”. It tells us that :

This newsletter provides monthly updates on oil and gas expansion globally. It monitors the climate impact of countries issuing exploration licences and companies sinking capital into exploration activities.

That sounds pretty much what I am looking for. Let’s see what it says. You can satisfy yourself that I am not emulating the Guardian and cherry-picking information to support my case, by following the link above. I will highlight what I take to be the main points. The introductory paragraph could hardly be further removed from the attention-grabbing headline adopted by the Guardian:

In the past month, 18 oil and gas exploration licences were granted in six different countries. The total carbon emissions projected to be produced from burning the reserves encompassed in all the licences across the six countries amounted to 14.7 million tonnes of CO2. While Russia awarded only three licences, the combustion of their estimated oil and gas reserves would emit 10.9 MtCO2, by far the most of any country last month. China awarded the most licences, which included 2.7 million barrels of oil and 13.2 billion cubic feet of gas.

In terms of the embedded emissions associated with the licences granted by those six countries, it is evident that Russia is way out in front – streets ahead of the others – while China is in second place, followed (in order) by Equatorial Guinea, Angola, USA and Australia.

As for existing licences:

A total of 1,922.7 MtCO2 would result from burning the oil and gas reserves that were licensed over the last 12 months. May 2024 saw the largest amounts of oil and gas volumes awarded, representing more than 600 MtCO2. However, in December 2023, a higher number of smaller licences were awarded, with a total of 673 granted in this month. The countries awarding the licences with the highest estimated volume of embodied emissions are typically those with low capacity to transition away from oil and gas production and a high dependence on these fuels. This category includes Angola, Republic of Congo, Oman, Russia, and Timor-Leste. The country that awarded the largest volumes of oil and gas over the past 12 months was Mozambique, with just five new licences in May 2024. Mozambique does not yet get sufficient revenues to classify as highly dependent but is betting on the sector for its economic development.

The accompanying table shows the top ten countries in this category, in declining order according to the embedded emissions associated with the licences issued. When studying this table, it becomes obvious why the Guardian opted to focus on the number of licences issued rather than on the volumes of fossil fuels and associated greenhouse gas emissions stemming from those licences. The country with the greatest volume of associated emissions is Mozambique, followed by Russia – between them they account more than half of the emissions associated with the top ten countries. Yet Mozambique would appear in 8^th place if the listing was carried out based on the number of licences issued. The UK is tenth in the list, with emissions representing just over 2.4% of the emissions associated with the top ten countries. However, in terms of the number of licences issued, the UK would be third in the list, ahead of Russia (which issued one licence less over the timescale covered by the report, despite Russia being in second place by embedded emissions). For the sake of completeness, the top ten, by volume of associated emissions are (in order): Mozambique, Russia, Egypt, Norway, USA, Angola, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Israel, UK.

As for ongoing and upcoming licensing rounds:

As of last month, there were 22 blocks open for bidding or under evaluation for oil and gas exploration. Looking ahead, upcoming licensing rounds are expected to offer a total of 401 blocks for exploration in 2024. The estimated global emissions resulting from burning the fuel reserves in these upcoming rounds is a staggering 8,407.6 MtCO2. Among these rounds, China leads with the highest number of oil and gas reserves within these blocks that have the potential to generate 1,654.7 MtCO2 if exploited.

Looking to the future (which, after all, is all that we can hope to control) the picture is very different indeed. Of the five developed countries pummelled so mercilessly by the Guardian article, only the USA features (in fourth place) in the list of the top ten countries by associated greenhouse gas emissions. In order, the top ten countries are: China, Mexico, Russia, United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt.

Concluding with global exploration trends, we learn:

Emerging economies such as Brazil have also significantly ramped up their exploration activities. Petrobras has acquired the biggest share of over 200 billion barrels of oil equivalent licensed in Brazil over the last 12 months. This represents about 90 MtCO2 of additional carbon emissions that risk being released into the atmosphere. Brazil is also expected to continue licensing new fields and has decided to keep bidding rounds open indefinitely.

In the United Kingdom, on the other hand, a newly elected government has pledged not to issue any new exploration licences. This development, among others, led Rystad to lower its forecasted estimates for 2024. 

Conclusion

Shame on you Guardian. Stop gaslighting us.