Leaving fossil fuels in the ground is more urgent than ever. The panel will examine projects to cancel, their financiers, and local impacts, integrating equity-based analysis of the rapidly depleting global carbon budget and NDCs 3.0 to drive just climate action, with a special focus on LAC.
Quotes:
“This is the fifth edition of Urgewald’s Global Oil & Gas Exit List, and once again we face the fact that the industry is not transitioning. The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that no new oil and gas resources should be developed if we were to stay below the 1.5°C limit; the oil & gas industry’s short-term expansion plans have risen by 33% since then. Companies spent an average of $60.3 billion per year in the past three years looking for new resources, an amount 75 times larger than the pledges to the UN Loss & Damage Fund. This is a mark of failure for governments and for financial institutions, too. As long as money keeps flowing towards fossil fuels, the temperatures will keep rising.”
– Heffa Schuecking, Director, Urgewald
“We stand at a defining crossroads for humanity, climate, and nature. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest and a vital carbon sink, is under growing pressure from fossil-fuel expansion. Today, oil and gas blocks overlap with 14% of Key Biodiversity Areas and 12% of Indigenous Territories, putting both ecosystems and cultures at risk. This mirrors alarming trends across other tropical forest regions, where fossil-fuel projects are advancing into high-integrity and biodiverse areas that are essential for global climate stability. Leaving fossil fuels in the ground is not only vital to meet the 1.5 °C goal, it is fundamental to protecting the living systems that make that goal possible.”
– Florencia Librizzi, Deputy Director, Earth Insight
“Oil and gas companies only contribute to 1% of the global renewable energy deployment, and only 0.1% of the energy they extract comes from renewable sources. The fossil fuel industry is not part of the solution to the climate crisis. The thousands of lobbyists that oil and gas companies bring to COP are here to obstruct progress towards climate justice and protect the trillions of dollars they are standing to lose if we phase out fossil fuels. They have a clear conflict of interest and should be excluded from any public institutions defining climate and energy policies.”
– Marcel Llavero-Pasquina, Researcher, Atlas of Unburnable Fossil Fuels, Universitat de Barcelona
“Keeping global warming below 1.5 °C means limiting the total amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere, between 2020 and the year when carbon neutrality is achieved, to a maximum of 400 Gt CO₂. At the current pace, and based on the NDC 2.0 commitments, 97 % of this budget will have been exhausted by 2030. In addition, emissions expected from the 84 countries that have already submitted their NDC 3.0 targets for 2035 would add another 91 Gt CO₂ between 2030 and 2035, representing a further 23 % of the global carbon budget. These figures show that the world is losing the opportunity to stabilize global temperature at 1.5 °C and highlight the urgent need to raise climate ambition to confront the most severe impacts of climate change.”
– Oliver Herrera and Olga Alcaraz. Group on Governance of Climate Change, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
“COP 30 is called to be an ‘implementation COP’, and a milestone for climate ambition in the middle of a complex geopolitical landscape, with some regressive narratives about fossil fuel phase out and energy transition in general. To fulfill this promise, not only the presidency would have to take a strong stance on the implementation of the Paragraph 28 of the GST, including the establishment of a roadmap for fossil fuel phase out, but also, key countries would need to convert themselves in examples for a rapid, orderly and just energy transition. This should translate in ambitious compromises in NDCs or national policies from developed countries that are among the main producers of fossil fuels, that aim to end their exploitation of fossil fuels, starting with coal, and to stop the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, establishing immediately exclusion zones in the most environmental and social sensitive territories.”
– Felipe Pino, Program Coordinator in FIMA NGO, member of Network for the Reduction of Fossil Fuels in LAC (RED-CFAL)
“COP30 represents an opportunity for governments to assert their climate commitments particularly with those of affected communities by the development of new fossil fuels infrastructure, including those that are seen as (false) transition fuels, like LNG. That is the case with the development of three LNG projects in the Gulf of California in Northwest Mexico, which would drastically affect the marine environment, but also could have economic, social and cultural long lasting impacts in the coastal communities, including indigenous groups.”
– Nancy Carmina García Fregoso, Legal Coordinator, Equal Routes
“We breached the 1.5°C global temperature for the first time in 2024, exceeding the threshold set in 2015 under the Paris Agreement. Ten years after Paris, fossil fuel production has continued to expand, with current plans set to exceed the volume of fossil fuels consistent with 1.5°C by 120% by 2030, and 77% more than would be consistent with 2°C. Fossil fuels are responsible for 86% of CO2 emissions in the past decade and just 20 countries are responsible for about 80% of global fossil fuel production. But at the same time, we are seeing stronger leadership on fossil fuel phase-out from countries like Colombia and Small Island States, who are spearheading discussions around a Fossil Fuel Treaty. These courageous nations, supported by a wide and diverse global movement of civil society, businesses, scientists, and frontline communities, are pushing to negotiate a global roadmap to end fossil fuel production and accelerate a just and equitable transition. The groundwork is being laid for the next critical step: a standalone conference on fossil fuel phase-out in 2026, announced by Colombia. It’s time to end fossil fuel dependence, build a world rooted in justice and equity, and protect what we love—our communities, our shared future, and the planet we call home.”
– Andrés Gómez, Latin America Coordinator for the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative