2025 Report
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Summary of Key Findings
Governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. The persistence of the global production gap puts a well-managed and equitable energy transition at risk.
Governments have explicitly acknowledged the need to transition away from fossil fuels to achieve this goal, a conclusion now reinforced by an opinion of the International Court of Justice. Yet 10 years on from the Paris Agreement, the situation remains stark: Cumulatively, countries are planning even more fossil fuel production than before, putting global climate ambitions at increasing risk.
Taken together, government now plan even higher levels of coal production to 2035, and gas production to 2050, than they did in 2023. Planned oil production continues to increase to 2050. These plans undermine countries’ Paris Agreement commitments, and go against expectations that under current policies global demand for coal, oil, and gas will peak before 2030.
The increases in fossil fuel production estimated under the government plans and projections pathways would lead to global production levels in 2030 that are 500%, 31%, and 92% higher for coal, oil, and gas, respectively, than the median 1.5ºC-consistent pathway. These plans and projections also collectively exceed the fossil fuel production implied by countries’ own climate mitigation pledges by 35% in 2030 and 141% in 2050.
Most of the 20 countries profiled in this report continue to plan fossil fuel production at levels inconsistent with their net zero climate ambitions.
In addition to government plans and projections for fossil fuel production that inform the global production gap analysis in Chapter 2, this report also reviews, in Chapter 3, the climate ambitions and fossil fuel production policies and strategies of 20 major producer countries. Altogether, these countries account for over 82% of production and close to 74% of consumption of the world’s primary supply of fossil fuels.
The continued collective failure of governments to curb fossil fuel production and lower global emissions means that future production will need to decline more steeply to compensate. Reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century, as the Paris Agreement calls for, will require cutting fossil fuel production and use to the very lowest levels possible.
Credit: Lynsi Burton, SEI
The last two years have also shown the importance of keeping the 1.5ºC target in sight. Governments at COP28 agreed to “keep the 1.5ºC goal within reach” and called for countries to submit mitigation targets “aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5ºC”. The 1.5ºC limit has been further reinforced by the International Court of Justice, which found that 1.5ºC is the “primary temperature goal” of the Paris Agreement, and that global and national responses must work towards this goal.
Achieving these reductions will require deliberate, coordinated policies to ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels. While a few major fossil-fuel-producing countries have begun to align production plans with national and international climate goals, most still have not.
Eleven out of the 20 profiled countries have increased near-term production plans for at least one fuel, relative to what they projected in 2023. Multiple governments continue to promote gas as a “transition fuel”, but without explicit future plans to transition away from it. Furthermore, all profiled countries continue to provide substantial financial and policy support for fossil fuel production. The fiscal cost of government support for fossil fuels remains near an all-time high.
On a positive note, six countries are now developing scenarios for domestic fossil fuel production aligned with national and global net zero targets, up from four in 2023.
As governments submit their third round of nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement, they must commit to reversing the continued expansion of global fossil fuel production, explicitly integrate plans for reducing production within wider energy transition efforts, and redouble cooperative efforts to ensure a just transition globally.
Several governments are actively pursuing clean energy transitions and supporting emerging and developing economies in accelerating transitions of their own.
But much more is needed. Most major fossil-fuel-producing countries have yet to embrace policies for deliberately phasing out fossil fuels and ensuring just transitions. Widely adopting and implementing such policies will be essential for successfully transitioning to a net zero world at the pace now required.