Justice & Paix

World’s fossil-fuel producers on track to nearly quadruple output from newly approved projects by decade’s end, report finds

Top oil and gas companies have made little progress in turning away from hydrocarbons and towards the goals of the 2015 Paris climate deal, multinational nonprofit platform CDP said on Thursday.

Without more legally binding and well-planned net-zero policies, the world is highly likely to miss key climate targets.

SACRAMENTO -- Data from the California Energy Commission (CEC) shows that 59 percent of the state’s electricity came from renewable and zero-carbon sources in 2020. The CEC estimates that in 2020, 34.5 percent of the state’s retail electricity sales were served by Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS)-eligible sources such as solar and wind. When sources of zero-carbon energy such as large hydroelectric generation and nuclear are included, 59 percent of the state’s retail electricity sales came from non-fossil fuel sources in 2020. In 2019, over 60 percent of the state’s electricity came from renewable and zero-carbon sources. The decrease in 2020 is due to decline in hydroelectric generation caused by severe drought, as well as pandemic-related delays to new renewable energy projects.

A new report has found that by 2025, the world must remove 1 Gigatonne, or 1 billion tonnes, of carbon from the atmosphere to keep global warming within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C. However, projects in development will remove only a fraction of this. The report says, “Without action to deliver 1 Gigatonne (Gt) of negative emissions globally by 2025, keeping global warming within the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C cannot be achieved.”

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