Publications

This report reviews the latest scientific evidence and other scholarly literature on the climate implications of new oil and gas extraction projects.

This is IISD's response to the UK consultation on the future of the North Sea, including the policy of ending new oil and gas licensing.

This report provides policy-makers with tools to mitigate the legal risks of investor–state arbitration when designing oil and gas phase-out policies.

This is IISD’s response to the UK consultation on how to change its regulations for environmental impact assessments of offshore oil and gas fields, to account for the emissions that occur when the oil or gas are eventually consumed.

This brief proposes how to estimate the price tag for phasing out fossil fuels, to help inform both governments' policy efforts and discussions on international climate finance. 

This briefing provides an introduction to the economic risks of fossil fuels, how governments can manage them, and what an internationally fair approach could look like. 

This report proposes policy solutions for delivering a fast, fair, and orderly phase-out of oil and gas production. 

Methodology and data used in the Civil Society Equity Review 2023, for calculating equitable timelines for phasing out fossil fuel extraction, and the amounts of financial resources required to enable the phaseout. 

The article argues that the UK has an opportunity to take a leading role in making fossil fuels socially and politically unacceptable, setting an example for other nations in tackling climate change. 

This blog summarises our paper in Science proposing an international norm against new fossil fuel projects.

This paper demonstrates that achieving the Paris goals implies no new fossil fuel projects should be built. It proposes building an international norm against new fossil projects, as a powerful next step in climate policy.

This report proposes science and equity-based dates by which different countries should end coal, oil and gas extraction to limit warming to 1.5°C, the amounts of international support needed to make this possible, and which countries should provide this support. 

This paper identifies a set of essential recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, including the urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out.

This report finds that petrostates' future government revenues are in jeopardy due to the global energy transition. It proposes policy measures these governments can take to reduce their risks. 

This chapter outlines some of the major issues related to global energy transformation, setting the scene for the subsequent chapter on energy transition in low- and middle-income countries.

This article reflects on and contextualises a new study finding that decarbonizing US electricity generation will create jobs, but with uneven distribution among states, industrial sectors and skill needs. 

This article examines the way IPCC scenarios phase out coal much faster than oil and gas, and the challenges this creates for coal-dependent economies, especially in the Global South. 

In IPCC pathways limiting warming to 1.5°C, global coal power generation declines very rapidly. This paper assesses the challenges this would create, and proposes a fairer balance between coal, oil and gas phaseout. 

This report highlights the implications of 1.5°C scenarios for fossil fuel phaseout and the scale-up to renewables, barriers to transitions and solutions to navigate the current energy crisis while maintaining climate ambition. 

This article examines how the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) could impede the implementation of climate pledges, which fossil fuel investors might challenge as violations of their investment protections. 

The first bottom-up assessment of committed CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-producing infrastructure, finding that existing fields and mines contain enough oil, gas and coal to significantly exceed 1.5°C carbon budgets. 

This blog summarises research commissioned from the Tyndall Centre at Manchester University, on phaseout pathways for fossil fuel production within Paris-compliant carbon budgets, differentiating countries according to equity principles.

My expert witness statement in Jeremy Cox et al’s case against the Oil & Gas Authority’s ‘Maximising Economic Recovery’ strategy. It focuses on the low taxes oil companies pay, and the impacts of that for the economy and for climate change.

This report tracks the discrepancy between governments' planned fossil fuel production and global production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. 

This article argues that allowing new oil and gas projects undermines the UK's credibility as host of the COP26 climate summit and weakens its leadership on climate action. 

This briefing proposes how climate change and development advocates can engage with national oil companies, the "hidden half" of the global oil industry. 

This report examines the role of gas in the Global South. It assesses public finance flows, risks from gas development, the status of alternatives to gas, and how to overcome the challenges of transition. It has detailed case studies of Argentina, Egypt, and India.

This briefing aims to help investors and others interpret and assess the feasibility of the role of CDR in companies' climate plans. 

This paper explores how to equitably manage the social dimensions of a rapid transition away from fossil fuel extraction. 

This chapter examines the past, present and possible futures of OPEC's engagement with the issue of climate change. 

This blog, summarising my chapter published in a book on OPEC, argues that we need to think about OPEC less simplistically, and suggests a role for OPEC in tackling climate change by restricting its supply of oil.

This report examines the climate impact of North Sea oil and gas extraction, and shows the way to a job-creating energy transition. 

My written evidence to the UK Environmental Audit Committee’s hearing into UK Export Finance (UKEF). It recommends that UKEF end its financing of long-lived fossil fuel projects. 

This blog critiques Shell’s climate plan, which would actually lead to increasing emissions, because the company’s targets for reducing carbon intensity are outweighed by its plans to increase the amount it produces.

This speech I gave at a conference in Mozambique remembers three heroes who stood up to the oil industry: Ida Tarbell, Mohammed Mosaddegh and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

This paper examines the potential impacts of energy transition, principles for equitably sharing the costs, and how to prioritize which fossil resources can still be extracted. 

This article revisits the debates on the oil motive for the Iraq War. It examines US/UK strategic objectives, how the governments planned to achieve them and how they decided to talk about them in public. 

This blog critiques Shell’s Energy Transition Plan, and argues that to align with the Paris goals, Shell should stop opening new oil and gas fields.

This report assesses the International Energy Agency as a guide to decisions on energy policies and investments, and argues that the IEA should align its advice with the Paris goals on climate change. 

This blog critiques Shell’s new ‘Sky’ scenario and laments the demise of Shell’s once world-leading scenarios team.

My opening statement, presented at the Irish parliament’s inquiry into the proposed Petroleum Bill. It makes the case that meeting Ireland’s climate goals requires ending the licensing of new oil and gas fields, critiques the idea of gas as a ‘transition fuel’ and shows why restricting fossil fuel supply is an effective policy. 

This blog critiques the International Energy Agency’s Sustainable Development Scenario, and calls on the IEA to publish a truly Paris-aligned scenario instead.

This report explores the track record of oil company forecasts of the future of energy systems, the assumptions built into the forecasts, and the consequences for investments and for climate change. 

This briefing assesses how decarbonisation of the energy system will affect the valuation of Saudi Aramco in its Initial Public Offering. 

This report explores the worsening economic and financial case for investment in Canada's tar sands, and the impact of limits to export infrastructure, lower oil prices and diminishing political and public support. 

This article assesses the potential legality of the UK's pursuit of economic change in Iraq, especially in relation to oil. 

This report assesses the lifetime emissions from "developed reserves" of fossil fuels in existing fields and mines, and argues for an end to opening new fields and mines. 

This article asks why the Chilcot Report into the UK's role in the Iraq War did not pay more attention to oil issues. 

This report examines the climate impact of the planned quadrupling of crude-by-rail terminal capacity in Oregon and Washington. 

This article discusses US oil objectives in Iraq, the extent to which they were achieved, the present status and what might come next. 

My expert witness statement in Friends of the Earth’s legal case against UK Export Finance support for Total’s Mozambique LNG project. It focuses on how to assess climate impact of a fossil fuel project, and the role of gas in the energy transition.

Drawing on thousands of unreleased government documents and dozens of interviews with key Iraq and foreign players, this book tells the story of the struggles over the future of oil during the occupation of Iraq. 

This commentary summarises and discusses my report revealing how BP and the Iraqi government secretly renegotiated the contract for the Rumaila field, after an apparently transparent auction, and how this skewed the benefits in favour of BP.

This report reveals how BP and the Iraqi government secretly renegotiated the contract for the Rumaila field, after an apparently transparent auction, and how this skewed the benefits in favour of BP.

This report analyses the the Kashagan oilfield in Kazakhstan, asking whether the country is getting a fair deal from the oil companies.

This paper describes and illustrates how corporations are imposing a new era of resource colonialism by means of investment agreements to protect their profits from public-interest regulation. 

This report reveals oil companies' and US/UK governments' desired future arrangements for Iraq's oilfields, and what they would cost Iraqis. 

The article reports on the achievements of the new oilworkers' trade union in occupied Iraq.

A book characterising what could be expected from BP’s proposed Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey pipelines system, based on the experience of BP projects in the UK, US and Colombia.