 We're delighted to have you today for the launch of the 2023 Production Gap Report. Thank you so much for tuning in today, everyone. I'm Lindsay Burton, the communications officer at Stockholm Environment Institute's US Center. We are here to announce our latest findings on the Global Production Gap. The Production Gap quantifies the misalignment between government's planned and projected production of coal, oil, and gas. And the Global Production Pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, according to the Paris Agreement. This report was produced by Stockholm Environment Institute, or SEI, Climate Analytics, E3G, International Institute for Sustainable Development, and the UN Environment Program. More than 80 researchers from more than 30 countries contributed to this work. Joining us today are the co-leads of the 2023 Production Gap Report, Dr. Ploy Ejikovicet, SEI Research Fellow based in Bangkok, and Michael Lazarus, US Center Director at SEI based in Seattle in the US. I'm also delighted to introduce you to Nicholas Hegelberg, UN Environment Program's Senior Program Coordinator of Climate Change, located in Nairobi. He will provide some introductory remarks momentarily. After Ploy and Michael share our findings, André Garciette, Director of Field Innovation at Grawald Climate Fund, and member of the Production Gap Report Steering Committee, will provide some insights and context for us to reflect on. We're also honored to be joined by some additional report partners today. Those would be Dr. Neal Grant, Climate and Energy Analyst at Climate Analytics, Katrina Peterson, Senior Policy Advisor at E3G, and Dr. Angela Petriolo, Senior Researcher at IASD. We will hear more from them after we present our findings. Before I turn it over to Nicholas, I'd like to remind everyone of some guidelines. After we hear from André and report partners, we are happy to take your questions and I will help facilitate that. If you'd like to ask a question, use the Q&A function, and I will do my best to call on you in order and get to as many different people as possible. With that, let's continue. Nicholas Hegelberg has played an instrumental role in the Production Gap Report from its start in 2019, serving on the Steering Committee and providing detailed review and consultation. He will start us off today with some comments. Nicholas, thank you for all your guidance, and I'll turn it over to you now. Thank you, Lindsay. Just when I unmuted myself, we lost power in Nairobi, so I hope that you can see me and hear me. Lindsay, can you just confirm that you can hear and see me? Excellent. Thank you so much. So welcome also from UNEP's side to the launch event of this 2023 Production Gap Report. The PGR is a complementary analysis to UNEP's Emission Gap Report, and we are very pleased to be part of this collaborative report with SEI Climate Analytics E3G and IISD. In only three weeks, the 28th Conference of Parties meeting will take place in Dubai. Negotiating parties will finalize the global stocktake and discuss how, among other things, they can enhance mitigation ambition and implementation to keep the Paris Agreement temperature goals alive. The year 2023 is on track to becoming the warmest year on record, and we are at the stage where absolutely all actions are needed to curb emissions. As fossil fuels account for some 90% of carbon dioxide emissions and 35% of human-induced methane emissions, a global transition away from fossil fuel is paramount to avoiding losing the Paris Agreement and to avoiding dangerous climate extremes. As the UN Secretary-General has said in connection with the launch of this report, COP28 must send a clear signal that the fossil fuel age is out of gas, that its end is inevitable. We need credible commitments to ramp up renewables, face out fossil fuels, and boost energy efficiency while ensuring a just equitable transition. With those few words, I would like now to turn over to Ploy and Michael to present the findings of the 2023 PGR. Over to you, Ploy. Ploy. So thank you, Nicholas. And next slide, please. This year's report is the fourth production gap report. We first launched in 2019, and this year's report features a comprehensive update of the global production gap analysis. We'll be reflecting, we are reflecting updated government plans and projections since August 2021, as well as new pathways informed by the latest IPCC Six assessment report. In this report as well, we explore for the first time the equity implications of government plans. So that's an interesting element. You'll hear more about that from Ploy in just a moment. We do a deeper dive on global fossil fuel reduction pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. This year, we consider, in particular, the uncertainties related to carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal. When in taking those into account, we derive some recommended long term reduction targets for coal, oil and gas. And you'll hear more about that again from Ploy in just a second. And then also a key feature of the report are 20 expanded country profiles, larger than we did last year to cover more information with more countries covered than we did in our last report. And those profiles in chapter three provide you with an overview of the climate ambitions and as well as the plans, policies and strategies that countries have to both continue to support fossil fuel production are in some cases. It's nice to see development now in terms of transitioning away from it in a managed and equitable way. So with that, I turn it over to Ploy to dive more deeply into this year's production gap assessment. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Nicholas. Next slide please. And thank you again to all our panelists for joining us today and to you and the audience for joining us online for our launch event. Before I dive into the report findings, I'd like to quickly acknowledge all of our reports, authors, steering committee and reviewers who are not shown on this slide and other supporters listed in our acknowledgments page. It truly takes a village to produce each year's production gap report and we're extremely grateful for everyone who has contributed to this work. Next slide please. All right, so to quantify the global production gap, we first identify the global pathways of fossil fuel production. They can be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, as shown here by the purple and green lines in this figure, along with their respective interquartile ranges. These pathways represent total coal oil and gas production intended for all energy and non energy uses and are informed by selected mitigation scenarios compiled in the IPCC assessment report. In a nutshell, these model generated scenarios chart out cost optimized pathways for limiting warming to a given temperature threshold by relying on different combinations and extents of major mitigation strategies to transform our energy and land use systems to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions. Next we estimate the so-called government plans and projections or GPP pathway shown here by the red line. This represents our estimate of the global levels of fossil fuel production implied by governments plans and projections based on our review of recent and publicly available national energy outlooks and strategies of 19 major fossil fuel producing countries as of August 2023. These 19 countries account altogether for around 80% of global fossil fuel production. We profile 20 countries individually in chapter three, but unfortunately outlooks from South Africa were not available. The aggregated projections are then scaled up to derive a global pathway based on these countries estimated shares of future global fossil fuel production as modeled by the international energy agency or the IEA under a scenario consistent with countries fulfilling their existing policies. So the production gap is the discrepancy between the global levels of fossil fuel production under the government plans and projections pathways and those under the 1.5 or two degree C consistent pathways in any given year. In this year's report we also showed the global production pathways implied by countries stated climate policies and by countries announced climate budgets as of September 2022 as modeled by the IEA shown in this figure by the solid and dashed gold lines. I want to note that fossil fuel production can be represented in several different units. Quantifying the production gap in terms of energy based units allow for the most direct comparison to the model outputs of the IPCC assess scenarios, but we can also aggregate across coal oil and gas to represent production. In terms of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions expected to be released from the production and combustion of extracted fuels. As we do in our main headline figure here for comparability with other climate assessments like the forthcoming forthcoming unit emissions gap report due for release on the 20th of November later this month. Next slide please. In this year's analysis we find that in aggregate governments are still planning to produce in 2030 around 110% more fossil fuels than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and 69% more than would be consistent with limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius. And as you can see in this figure the production gap with respect to both temperature limits grow wider out to 2050. And at the size of the overall production gap, in particular in 2030 relative to 1.5 degrees C has remained largely unchanged compared to our prior assessment since we first started tracking this metric in 2019. And so despite encouraging signs of an emerging clean energy transition, the persistence of the global production gap puts a well managed and equitable energy transition at risk, and also conflicts with governments climate commitments. The production gap can also be shown in terms of its component fuels plotted here in energy and physical base units. As you can see from the purple pathways in these figures, global production of coal oil and gas all declined substantially and rapidly between now and 2050 in order to limit long term warming to 1.5 degrees C with no limited temperature overshoot. However, as shown by the red pathways, government plans and projections when taken together would lead to an increase in global coal production until 2030 and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050, which is the end year of our analysis. In 2030, governments production plans and projections would lead to around 460% more coal, 29% more oil, and 82% more gas than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C. As you can also see in these figures, the disconnect between planned fossil fuel production and levels implied by governments climate policies and pledges are also apparent across all three fossil fuels. Given that governments production plans and targets help to influence, legitimize and justify continued fossil fuel dependence, there is a real risk that such plans are undermining the energy transition by locking in long lived fossil fuel infrastructure. At the same time, many of these investments in infrastructure are at risk of becoming stranded assets as the world decarbonizes and fossil fuel production targets fail to reflect falling demand and changing socio political realities. Next slide please. The size and nature of the global production gap also raises the question of how it can be closed in a managed and equitable way. Now it's beyond the scope of this year's report to provide differentiated 1.5 degree C aligned pathways for different countries. So let's take a look at what we've explored back in our 2020 production gap report and informed by the growing literature on this topic. An equitable transition away from fossil fuels should recognize that country circumstances differ widely, depending on their financial and institutional capacity, as well as their level of socio economic dependence on fossil fuel production. While simplified these two indicators nonetheless capture the broad challenge that an equitable global transition will entail. This figure taking income level per the World Bank classification as a broad proxy for transition capacity. We find that if we aggregated the plans and projections of 19 countries underlying the global GPP pathways, the levels of plan coal oil and gas production by 10 high income countries alone would already exceed global levels under the 1.5 degree C consistent pathways by 2040. To repeat this exercise by grouping countries by their levels of relative economic dependence on fossil fuel production. We also find that the plans and projections of 12 countries with relatively lower dependence would exceed the 1.5 degree C pathways by 2040 for each fuel. So without proactive engagement and discussion between parties. There is a real risk that global, a global fossil fuel phase out will be highly inequitable, fail to support vulnerable communities and further trust and global cooperation on climate action. Next slide please. So with the plans 2.3 and 2.4 of chapter two this year. We analyze the selected 1.5 degree C consistent pathways from the IPCC AS6 database, along with the IA's 2023 update of its net zero emissions by 2050 scenario, or the NZE. So explore the global reduction pathways of coal oil and gas production. That would be consistent with achieving net zero CO2 emissions by mid century in more detail. We have three key insights and policy implications from these analyses. Firstly, to keep the 1.5 degree C goal in reach, the global production and consumption of all three fossil fuels needs to decline substantially between now and 2050, alongside other key climate mitigation strategies, like scaling up renewable energy, improving energy efficiency and reducing methane emissions from all sources. This is also true regardless of whether a given scenario relies on the future large scale deployment of fossil CCS and all carbon dioxide removal or CDR later on or not. Secondly, the model reductions in coal oil and gas depend on and influence one another, especially in the near term. And so it's important to focus and set reduction targets for all three fossil fuels, not just on coal. And lastly, the pace and magnitude of the model reductions in coal oil and gas are particularly sensitive to the assumed reliance on carbon capture and storage and CDR, especially for gas. And from our analysis, we find that taking a precautionary approach to limiting reliance on these uncertain technologies means that at a minimum countries should be aiming for a near total phase out of coal production and use by 2040 and a combined reduction in oil and gas production and use by around three quarters by 2050 from 2020 levels. Next slide please. Now these long term global reduction targets are informed by the cost optimized mitigation scenarios we analyze. It's important to bear in mind that other factors and lines of evidence should also be considered, which reinforce the need for an even faster phase out of fossil fuels. So firstly, even though we apply some scenario filtering criteria to screen out mitigation scenarios with excessive fossil CCS and CDR reliance, the majority of ASX assess scenarios do still assume the successful large scale commercialization of these measures. However, the annual capacity from operating CCS projects, resulting in dedicated storage currently some up to less than 0.1% of global annual CO2 emissions. Second, the mitigation scenarios we analyze explore how society can achieve net zero CO2 emissions in the most cost effective way, but without accounting for the localized near term and non climatic harms of coal oil and gas extraction and burning, such as toxic air, water and waste pollution. And so one could almost argue I would say that the fact that fossil fuel driven air pollution are causing millions of people around the world to fall ill and die prematurely every year should be enough reason to accelerate a fossil fuel phase out in every country. And finally, other research has shown that the committed CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel production and consumption infrastructure already exceed the remaining emissions budget consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C. Indeed, the IEA ends at E scenario for sees no need for new coal mines or new oil and gas fields after 2021, and they're declining global fossil fuel demand. And so altogether that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that we need to phase out all fossil fuels as rapidly as rapidly as possible. And with that I turn over to my colleague Michael Lazarus. Thanks so much, Floyd. And as part of the basis for the production gap analysis that ploy was just referring to, we compile extended country profiles for about 20 countries this year for 20 countries this year, those 20 countries represent 82% of global fossil fuel production. And they also account for around three quarters of global fossil fuel consumption, as well as territorial emissions. So, when we cover these countries we are covering much of both production and use. These country profiles wouldn't be possible without the participation in the report of a number of country experts so we rely heavily on those. I gave a nod to them earlier. I saw several of them listed amongst the participants here. That's how we, we bring these together through extensive research as well as relying on publicly available government information as well as the opportunity for governments to review and respond as well. Next slide please. We focus on governments. I saw a question in the Q&A, you know, do we look at what investor owned companies do. We focus on governments and government policies and actions and perspectives in this report, because governments play a central role in setting the direction for future fossil fuel production. State owned enterprises control half or more of global oil, gas and coal production. And government plans, projections, policies and incentives also guide private sector decisions. For example, governments around the world continue to provide subsidies to the producers of fossil fuels. In 2021, producer subsidies hit their highest level, $78 billion, since the OECD began tracking them. There is a bit of good news as well that international public finance for fossil fuel production is the fossil fuels generally is on the decline down 35% from 2016 to 2018 levels. The countries have signed the Glasgow statement and international public finance for unabated fossil fuel projects and to redirect investments to clean energy, but international public finance for fossil fuels is still twice the level as it is for clean energy. Next slide. We look, as mentioned at the climate ambitions of countries, as well as their plans and policies for fossil fuel production. 17 of the countries that we profile here have pledged to achieve net zero emissions. At the same time, most continue to support, invest and plan on the expansion of fossil fuel production. These countries have launched initiatives to reduce the emissions from fossil fuel production activities, upstream emissions initiatives such as the net zero producers forum and the global methane pledge. These initiatives mentions the need to reduce fossil fuel production itself, and none of these countries have committed to reducing coal oil and gas production in line with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. Indeed, most countries with significant proven oil and gas reserves plan to increase production as this table table ES1 in the report shows only four of 17 oil producers surveyed, anticipated a decline out to 2030 and those decreases are small and do largely to natural decline. Many countries are still promoting gas as an essential bridge or transition fuel, but with no apparent plans to transition away from it later to get off the bridge. And all need major producers are planning increases. Several countries even plan major increases in coal production out to 2030. Now why you may ask. And at some point out how does this, this clashes with some projections that fossil fuels will peak soon. Governments have many rationales however for aiming to increase production, reducing import dependency, generating government revenue legal obligations confidence in winning out as one of the last producers in a dwindling market. Some even argue that their oil and gas would lower global emissions, because they produce them more cleanly. Problem is that when taken together that's what leads to the production gap itself. Next slide. There are however so encouraging signs of change as we spoke is as noted, and others have pointed out and analyze on international public finance we're seeing positive signs of change. We're seeing lots of ambitious policies to accelerate the transition and reduce the demand for fossil fuels policies and the number of leading countries leadership. On renewables in China and India, the inflation reduction act in the US, you fit for 25 list goes on across countries. We're also seeing for the first time that countries have begun to develop scenarios for domestic fossil fuel production that are consistent with national or global net zero target something. We hadn't seen when we first launched the production gap report. We also see support for a just energy transition is growing, although it's still mostly focused on coal fired power generation. Several countries joined a couple years back the powering past coal alliance and now there is a new alliance called the beyond oil and gas alliance. And that seeks a managed phase out of oil and gas production and now Columbia has joined as a friend of beyond oil and gas alliance so there are positive signs out there as well. Next slide. So finally in closing. What do governments need to do to close this production gap well. First, they need to align their fossil fuel plans and projections with the Paris agreements temperature goals, as well as their own net zero commitments. They need to coordinate their strategies as Floyd pointed out it's not just not so simple just to focus on energy efficiency are promoting renewables that has to all be done coordinated with planning for a transition away from the production of fossil fuel as well. Even the IA pointed out this year that coordinating the wind down a fossil fuel supply with the wind down a fossil fuel demand will be essential. That coordination will be essential to avoid locking in unsustainable levels of fossil fuel infrastructure and investment that could impede the energy transition and creates threaded assets and communities. This also will help to avoid damaging price spikes as we've seen or supply blood that's so that coordination is important that's how these plans and projections can become aligned. It's important that countries adopt near and long term reduction targets. And to use and use those to complement as just pointed out those other climate mitigation efforts and targets. Floyd pointed out that our analysis suggests that countries should aim for a near total phase out of coal production and use by 2040 and a combined reduction in oil and gas production and use by three quarters by 2050 from 2020 levels at a minimum in light of not only the AR and CCS risks and uncertainties but the damages that fossil fuel production can have through air pollution and other means to overburden communities. And with that in mind, finally I want to note that it's essential that countries recognize their differentiated responsibilities and capabilities in this context and that governments with greater transition capacity should aim for more ambitious reductions than what the global average is that Floyd spoke to and we just saw and help to finance the transition efforts in countries with limited capacities. So with that, thank you for your attention. I'd like to turn it over to Andrea to give us some discussant insights and reflections on the report. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael employee and if this is an amazing effort and not being one of the brilliant scientists and analysts that worked on this. My job here is to provide a couple of insights from a diplomacy and national policy background on what are were the messages that really impacted me and to open a bit of a discussion that way. So, for me there were two big points that I took from this report. One was a reflection on how timely that the report is with the conversation that's happening on the way to cock 28 in terms of do we need to talk and have commitments about production and also feel face out and that to be a complement to the existing mitigation commitments and for me seeing a gap that is this size of all and that it's not getting smaller. It is a yes, we do need to have that discussion in in the international arena, this does need to be part of hopefully language that country set us set for having clear market signs and clear goals for themselves. Another part that I found very innovative and a new way of looking at things is especially in with regards to oil and gas because we kind of had some assessment of differentiated timelines for coal is how countries can tackle the situation depending on the capacities they have and levels of income they have. So for me it was very striking to see in this report that there is a very big disconnect between countries that are even considered climate ambitious and their plans. And so there is this call for countries to be coherent and to, especially if they have the capacities align those production goals with their ambitious climate goals. It's clear that they have recognized that climate is an important issue for themselves and globally. And now this for me is is the clear next step. For other developing countries that don't have the capacity to phase out at at this moment, and being from one of those fossil fuel dependent countries myself. It kind of keeps me up at night, to be honest, because it the challenge in front of us is very, very big. We have to first have the political will and some of these countries including my own and now have expressed that political will, but they need the support as well to do this so just to wrap our heads around how big the task is for these countries because they have to convince their political system and their people that this these targets for deviating from these production this production plans need to be done and that's a tall task that's not easy to understand because obviously there's a concern of what else are we going to live from some of the countries have a high high percentage of their GDP that is dependent on the fossil fuel exports mainly. When they have that they need to set these targets and they need to figure out what is going to fill that economic gap in their country. What are these regions in their country and the country as a whole what is a best fit for economic progress. And even this is a great amount of work and consensus building and analysis, which in many cases they need support of when you have that then you need to go into a plan like nothing we've seen really in most of our countries, in terms of educating the right new business lines that we're opening, we need to create capacity in the workers and the businesses from the fossil fuel industry to be able to participate in this new economy. And we need to build up the infrastructure needed for it. And all of this is very costly and there's currently not enough discussion, in my opinion in the international community on how we are going to support these countries in their task of economic diversification and growth in alternative business lines that are sustainable and that are not fossil fuel dependent. So yes for me it is very impactful to see the risk of stranded assets, how much developing countries and other countries are betting on a market that is very probably not going to be there for their fossil fuel products, and how unprepared we are how how early it is in the conversation in many countries, especially seeing all of these these next steps that have to be done and have to be done very quickly if you look at the timelines. So, I'll stop there but I really want to emphasize the importance of this report coming and hope that it does reach policymakers and decision makers in the countries that are listed here and others. Thank you very much. Thank you so much Andrea and thank you for all your support and the production gap report. I'd like to turn to our report partners for further reaction. Let's start with Neil at climate analytics. Neil, your research has examined the various uncertainties related to carbon capture and storage, of course known as CCS and carbon dioxide removal CDR. How do we ensure that pathways for phasing out fossil fuels are robust to those uncertainties. How would you like that to be reflected in the COP 28 outcomes, Neil. And I'd like to start by just saying it's great to be here at the launch of the report and I'm grateful to all the co authors and everyone who's contributed to this report. Yes, as you said in your question, there's there's significant uncertainties around the feasibility of upscaling CCS and CDR but I think I'd start by actually saying something which we're very clear on around CCS and CDR which is that they are not going to be the solutions for cutting emissions in this critical decade. We know that we've seen the IPCC has shown that the IEA has shown that has a huge range of evidence which is very clear that CCS and CDR will not be able to scale fast enough to make a meaningful contribution to cutting emissions this year, this decade. And that means that in this decade, the solution has to be reducing fossil fuel production and use. But as we go out and look over the more long term that we do see that there is significant uncertainty around the feasibility of building up CCS and CDR. Carbon dioxide removal technologies are very nascent. There's lots of exciting work going on to scale options here at the moment but it's from a very, very low base. And CCS has a very poor track record around 80% of the demonstration projects over the last 30 years have ended in failure. And so it's really important that we limit CCS and CDR reliance to avoid unrealistic or unsustainable reliance on these technologies and that's the approach that we took here in the production gap report. So I think as Ploy was saying, it's important to emphasize that the gap that we calculate and find and all the work we do is based on looking at 1.5 compatible pathways which avoid unsustainable and excessive reliance on CCS and CDR. And the results are really clear. It shows that fossil fuels need to decline now, they need to decline fast, and they need to head rapidly towards zero. So I think the most important point as we think about uncertainty in CCS and CDR is to be clear that these technologies do not replace the need for rapid and permanent reduction in fossil fuels. And they therefore really can't be used as a justification for continued or expanded fossil fuel extraction, which is a narrative that we're being seen pushed around the world and particularly as we come towards COP28. And so I think that's the key thing I'd want to say. I think in our scenarios, as Ploy said, there's still some CCS and CDR. You can see this in Figure 2.4 in the report. And so we did look at what happens if we actually reduce this further and we take latest opinions from experts on what actually might be feasible for these technologies. And that's where we get some of our key long-term targets, which is that we need to be effectively phasing out coal from the energy system by 2040. And we need to be cutting oil and gas by at least 75% in 2050. And again, I'd highlight that we should see these targets as ambition floors, not ceilings. They're the minimum level we need to be getting to. And really we need to be going beyond them. Yeah, so that would be my reflections on that particular part. Thanks, Lindsay. Thank you so much, Neil. Let's turn to Katrina Peterson at E3G. The report points to a disconnect between the global turn away from coal use in power and other sectors and countries plans to increase coal production. As someone who's been working in this area, can you speak to what that disconnect means for efforts to achieve a just well managed transition away from coal? Thanks, Lindsay, for that question. And thanks to everyone who's on the call, everyone that's joined, everyone who's speaking on the panel. It's really great to be here for the launch of this excellent and very important report. To kind of follow up on something that Andrea touched on just before as well, the production gap report really shows just how strikingly disconnected the scale of government's planned production of coal oil and gases from the reality of the actual shrinking demand for those fossil fuels. And that's especially apparent for coal. Even without the additional climate policies that we need to see global demand for coal is going to peak within the next couple years. It's likely going to crash after that simply on the basis of pure economics alone. Coals simply can't compete as a fuel with cheap renewables and countries are recognizing that. The global pipeline of new coal plants is collapsing almost everywhere in the world except for China where it will also peak and go start to go down soon. And countries are expanding their clean energy systems instead. And so there really is no future long term future for coal demand. And you know, as the dirtiest fossil fuel, it's also the one that we absolutely have to kind of work to phase out the fastest. Alongside, of course, a rapid phase out of oil and gas too. And that story of peak demand is repeating for oil and gas as well. They will peak this decade even without further policies in place. There is no long term future for any fossil fuels. But countries sort of predict plans for production are completely disassociated from that reality and for coal specifically. It shows just how pressing it is for those coal producing countries to reign in their production plans. And you know, urgently focus on creating managed transitions for their people working in the coal sector, for their coal reliant regions, for companies and for assets. If countries don't wake up to the fact that expanded plans for coal production are completely out of sync with actual demands and with how much faster we need to go in the shift away from fossil fuels to stay on track for a 1.5 degree pathway. And if countries don't carefully plan for placing out their production to align with that direction of travel, then all they're really doing is exposing their coal industry workers and the communities that rely on them to huge risks of loss of livelihoods and of economic insecurity. And you know, of course, a just transition away from coal and for all fossil fuels isn't just a nice to have in terms of managing the risks of the transition. It's an absolute prerequisite for creating the political possibility within a country to actually enable the clean energy transition in the first place, you know, without embedding a focus on justice for workers into policies and plans for the energy transition. Governments just risk public backlash, they risk political opposition and an overall failure in their ability to really push forward the climate policies that we need from them. Good conversations are happening on thinking about, you know, well managed just transition away from coal in some countries. The just energy transition partnerships that I'm sure many of you will have heard of in South Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, and recently Senegal as well are, you know, good steps in the right direction. And I think it's important to say that, you know, their very existence shows that wealthy countries really recognize the principle of equity as another key part of a well managed transition away from fossil fuels. In that, you know, kind of countries in the global south need financial support to help them transition away from economies where they rely substantially on fossil fuel production for that economy. And, you know, wealthy countries have a responsibility to provide that financial support and they recognize that through things like the just energy transition partnerships. But I would say that it's not yet fully clear whether those partnerships are actually providing the, you know, sufficient finance and scale that we need to see for them to be transformative in the way that's needed. So overall, I just end on saying that, you know, we're not where we need to be in countries managing their energy transitions well to avoid economic and social risks. We're not there on coal, we're not there on oil or on gas. And so, you know, the final thing to say is really that, you know, for COP 28, we need countries to start having that conversation. We need them to recognize the reality that the clean energy transition is inevitable. It needs to be faster. Fossil fuel demand is already in decline and that needs to accelerate to and that, you know, makes the commitment to adjust and manage phase out of all fossil fuel production and use completely necessary. Unless countries want to take the risks of letting that be an unmanaged transition. Thank you. Thank you, Katrina. Finally, Angela, as the PGR notes government subsidies to fossil fuel producers in 2021 hit their highest level since records have been kept. What's behind that rise and what should be done about it. Thanks Lindsay and thanks everybody for all the great work on on the report. Yes, indeed. As Michael already pointed out in the presentation the latest estimates that we've got on producer subsidies by the OECD are for 2021 and you know they show 64 billion US dollar in producer subsidies which is 17% higher than the 2019 figure and it's the highest since the OECD started tracking these numbers. And what these numbers include basically is government support to different stages of fossil fuel production that are made out of two main elements budgetary transfers and tax breaks. There is something that is not included in these numbers. And it's, for example, investments in fossil fuel production by fossil fuel state on enterprises SOEs. And we at ISD recently calculated that also for last year. And even on that number we saw that investments by SOEs in fossil fuel productions got its highest record number last year over a period of eight years. So together the sum of the producer subsidies as computed by the OECD and the investments by fossil fuel SOEs are at the moment providing a huge down payment to new fossil fuel production. And there is an argument that says that subsidies to production are not that important because they are a lot smaller than subsidies to consumption. And so yeah, they are a small portion of the overall fossil fuel subsidies. But there are two reasons why that is not really true and their importance shouldn't be underplayed. And one is the problem of transparency, of course, fossil fuel subsidies are in general affected by poor transparency, but this is particularly the case for producer subsidies. So there is good grounds to think that the numbers that we've got there are big underestimates of the real figures. On the other hand, the way government structure these subsidies is in a way that crowds in private investments into fossil fuel production as well. So you end up with a total investment in production, which is a lot bigger than it would be without those subsidies being there. And yeah, to conclude what to do about it. So I think there are a couple of issues at the moment. And one is that the timelines for fossil fuel subsidies face outs are actually too distant. So there is no immediate need for countries to face out fossil fuels, including production subsidies. We're talking about, you know, 2025 for the G7 2030 under the SDGs. So we need those timelines to be clearer and closer. For example, we've been looking at 2025 for developed countries before 2034 all the other countries. The second issue is that what parties signed up to in the commitment text in COP26 was the commitment to face out for inefficient fossil fuels, which of course gives a huge loophole for countries to say that their fossil fuel subsidies are not inefficient or so they don't need to be phased out. So that has to be corrected. All fossil fuel subsidies need to be phased out, except potentially the few ones that are justifiable, for example, that are essential to improve energy access. And in general, the face out should happen in conjunction with a number of other policies that have already been mentioned in the report and by the other panelists to ensure a just transition for the affected workers and communities, but also to increase the deployment of renewable energies and energy efficiency and electrification that can guarantee energy security. And I'll stop there. Thank you. Many thanks to you, Angela, and to all our report partners. Now we'll take your questions. Again, please navigate to Zoom's Q&A function and add yourself to the queue. We've already received many insightful questions and some of our experts are even typing those as we go. So do keep your eye on that. I will pitch your question to our panel of experts and attempt to cover as many different questions from as many different people as possible. Thank you. And also we've received a question on where to find the report online. Go to production gap.org and you should see all the materials there. So let us turn to the Q&A. Glenn writes, we're in a heap of trouble. How can we drive accountability and accelerate the transition to reduce impacts and replace fossil energy? Katrina, did you want to take that one? Yeah, I can take that one. Thank you, Lindsay. I mean, you know, I think that's the million dollar question and the thing we all want to see happen. And, you know, certainly I agree that we're not where we want to be, but there are ways to get there. And you're right to talk about accountability because that is absolutely one of the key things. What I would say firstly is that, you know, we have a very key moment coming up, which is COP 28 and that is an opportunity for governments to really escalate the level of ambition that they're willing to come up with to, you know, match the urgency of the situation that we're in. And it requires them to be much bolder and much more firm in their commitments and also much more transparent in terms of how they are declaring the policies that will get them to the target state themselves have set. And that includes being much more transparent about their policies and plans for fossil fuel production. What I would, what we can, what I'm hoping that we can see at this COP and what I think will at least be one part of getting us in the right direction of, you know, reducing use of fossil fuels is for countries to really step up and agree that face out that full face out of fossil fuels by the middle of century that we have all been talking about. Alongside that, they need to be committing to tripling capacity for renewables that needs to be doubling energy efficiency. And crucially, they need to be talking about how to ensure that the finance to support all countries and being able to make that transition is there. So stepping up on these kind of commitments can actually help countries, you know, take control of the energy transition rather than just letting it happen to them. And through that kind of focus, you know, stimulate the investment and the development of ambitious policies that could be effective as well that that we need to see. And we really need that ambitious outcome that will, you know, tilt policy and investment towards renewables away from fossil fuels and kind of and shift the whole landscape. And before that will be accountability and the UNF the UN process needs to be looking more into how to hold countries accountable on the commitments that they make and countries themselves also need to be much more upfront and transparent with, you know, sharing the plans for how they will actually meet the targets that they themselves have set. Many countries are good at saying that they want to deliver on net zero emissions and many are putting some policies in place. So we really need to be firmer there and certainly what we absolutely need to see is is commitments to stop building new coal plants to phase out fossil fuels and to scale up renewable energy. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for your question as well. Our next question I believe will pitch to ploy. If we follow current production pathways what temperature trajectory would we be on. That's a great question. So we don't do climate modeling ourselves to estimate the resulting global warming outcome under the GPP pathway. But if we were to compare the pathways to the IA stated policy scenarios shown in the solid line in our figure yes point one or 2.1. The IA estimates that under its step scenarios emissions from all greenhouse gas sources would lead to a long term warming of around 2.5 degrees Celsius. And so because our pathway of fossil fuel production is higher than that so assuming all other greenhouse gas emissions are equivalent then it would likely lead to a longer term. That would be a higher temperature outcome than 2.5 degrees C. And this is buried in footnote 11 of chapter two for your reference. Thank you. Thank you for and thank you for the question. Next one I believe is for Nicholas. How do you think an ambitious global plastics treaty that is still being negotiated can help reduce this gap. I think that was the question from Jan. So yes indeed so plastic do account for some three to four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions or they're about to gigaton of emissions and this is projected to be increasing. So if the plastics treaties able to help deliver with a more efficient sustainable the reduce reuse recycle issues around plastics then yes there is will be a positive impact of the plastic treaties on on emissions as well from the fossil fuel sector. I do believe that I don't quite have the numbers what the projections may be. But at least the the current emissions and the projection of that doubling by 2050 2060 with the with current trajectories gives you an indication on that that there are are are wins to be had also if we're smarter and and more sustainable with with plastic production and use. And perhaps just one additional element that the the emissions coming from plastic production tend to 90% be in the production chain. So in that that's really where there is opportunities for for reducing emissions back to you Lindsay. Thank you Nicholas and thank you Jan. Next we have a question from will just five rich global North countries are responsible for the majority 51% of planned new oil and gas extraction to 2050 the US, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK. Do these countries have the responsibility to move first to phase out fossil fuel production. I know that's something we address in the report who can take that. All right, sure. Since everybody else's had a chance to chime in so far. Feel free to take this one to Angela I think that that's one of those softball questions where. We argue very strongly in the report, but boys analysis that she presented shows is that, you know, 10 large producing countries can use up basically the carbon budget we have to get to 1.5 with their production alone. This is very much like the collective action problem we face on the mission side. Based on the production side as well. There are a lot of factors that go into who might produce in the 1.5 degree future. Of course, you know, do low cost cleaner producers go first. Enable that low cost and lower emitting upstream emitting production to happen but yet not disadvantaged countries that, you know, have not garnered the benefits of fossil fuel production and the revenues it's created. So this requires the kinds of negotiations that we've seen happen on other issues related to the climate agenda all the way to loss and damage. And so what we are saying in this report, as others have been saying in this call is that in the venue like COP 28 we need to address this issue head on it needs to be part of the discussion about all of the equity and other elements of getting to net zero effectively and justly. Thanks. Thank you, Michael. And we have a couple of questions from Steve pie and he is a co author so we might actually let him ask and maybe answer some of his questions. But Steve asks, what are the four countries that have net zero aligned production scenarios. And he also asks, can you comment on the equity issues relating to the proposed near total phase out of coal in 2040. Raising the student narrow spread of pathways produced by the scenarios for coal and issues of political feasibility. Steve, I'm allowing you to talk and chime in if you like, otherwise playing Michael, would you like to jump in on that. I don't want to put you on the spot Steve sorry that was my idea and let me know if that's okay but since you're a chapter two and chapter three co author and wrote the relevant paper on coal phase out and equity I wanted to invite you to share your thoughts but I can I cannot say your first question which is that in this year's report we found that Indonesia, Germany, China and Canada have started to develop fossil fuel production scenarios that are in line with the national or international net zero strategies or long term strategies to decovernize. But as we kind of discuss in the report they're largely confined to a scenario exercise at this stage, but nonetheless, they signal some sort of positive change positive development to highlight that other countries could follow, because it's it's this very reason and oversight of not aligning planned domestic fossil fuel production with national and international climate goals that leads to the persistence of the global production gap. And how do you feel about answering your own second question I can take it if you don't want to. Can you hear me. Yes. Yeah, no I mean I think it was just obviously the, the reduction trajectory for coal is quite stark and it's there isn't much variability across the sort of pathways that are used in the production gap reports and I just wondered if anyone had any reflections on the kind of equity issues around the implications to some of those big coal producers and also questions of political feasibility, because I suppose 2040 isn't that far off so it was just really putting that out there that it's, it's a, it's a challenging one. And there is a really great point and I think it's it's one of the reasons we focused more and longer term reduction targets, as informed by the mitigation scenarios and this year's report to because the near term reductions are really sensitive to relative differences between coal oil and gas. I believe, if we look at the idea in that in addition to the IPCC assess scenarios. The idea goes slower on coal, but then faster on oil and gas in the near term. And as your paper, kind of captured phasing out coal at unprecedented rates that have not been achieved historically would play with place a large burden on emerging economies lower income economies because a lot of the major oil and gas producers are sort of upper middle and higher income countries. And so, yeah, it's just this added dimension to this really difficult problem of how do we share the remaining fossil fuel extraction budget in line with limiting warming to 1.5 in an equitable way. Thank you. Thank you for letting us put you on the spot Steve. Next we have a question from Stefan. Are there sufficient alternative energy sources to sustain global energy usage levels or will the transition away from fossil fuels require reductions in demand. You can take that one. I can jump in on this to start. Thanks for your question Stefan. And I would say when we look at the current deployment rates of zero carbon technologies like wind and solar. And we are seeing a really rapid acceleration in their deployment and we know that the potential for these technologies is vast as well. There's a huge amount of energy which can be provided by these technologies. The picture is very is very positive there and that these renewable technologies could replace all demand for fossil fuels and still meet our energy demand requirements. But I would say that while that is possible actually, you know, there is a lot of waste in our energy system. And the more that we can cut that down the better you know, moving from a petrol car to an electric car will cut your energy demand for driving per mile by about 80%. And so there's a lot of waste which can be cut out which will reduce the size of the energy system. And that's a really good thing because that will just make us more efficient and allow us to sort of scale our actions faster. And we also know that action on the demand side has a lot of benefits as well. So there's a recent literature review which looked at actions to cut energy demand and show that they have huge co benefits a huge benefits to our health and our well being and wider benefits to society. So I'd say that there's a very positive picture on the ability of zero carbon technologies to meet that energy demand. I'm not sure if I jumped slightly, but yeah, there's huge potential for them. But absolutely we shouldn't forget the large benefits of energy efficiency and demand reduction, which can help us just phase out fossil fuels even faster and also bring huge co benefits to the transition. Vincent, may I jump in and compliment a little bit to Neil's point. So, so indeed, there's a lot of positive signs, but I think it's also important that we look at how energy is used. So the power side, the tide is turning. There's really good signs. But then when we come over to transport, there's some countries like China, for example, where where that transport related energy. IEA, for example, believes that that will be critical for shifting, shifting the demand. Europe early signs as well and Norway obviously is a good example of where there may be a almost dominant new transport system coming up. But then there are really difficult areas. So industrial production, cement, steel, these type of things where they're still, it's the economy that determines if there is an upswing or down, down turning in the fossil fuel consumption. So we are in the early stages, early part of, of perhaps S curves in terms of many of those sectors. So cement, steel, aluminium, obviously then then airplanes and so on. So there, there is not the immediate turn coming our way. So, so a lot to do be done still back to you. Thank you. Nicholas, we're going to keep it on you for a second. Rachel and Matthew have some related questions. Rachel asks, is there any way legally or otherwise to get the main producers to cut back significantly on fossil fuel production. We who live in the small island and developing states are the most impacted at COP 26 and 27. Nothing related to this came into effect. Too much talk and not enough action to help us. Matthew asks, do you think there could be a legal framework for holding governments accountable for the production gap. I know for the EU there might be one. Nicholas. Thanks. Yeah, so, so a little bit of the same answer for both. So, just in end of July, UNEP came out, I think it was the third status report on on climate related litigation and I'll copy paste it into our chat box. But the findings there is litigation is growing exponentially we are from 2017 we saw like little bit more than 800 cases. And in the report now to the end of 2022, we're way over 2000 cases as well and the geographical spread for litigation cases in terms of climate change is growing rapidly as well. Out of the litigation cases that the team looked at, there's clearly six categories. So one is the human rights side and the international law on that. The second one is domestic non enforcement of climate related laws and policies. The third one is seeking more or less litigation against fossil fuel companies and trying to keep fossil fuels in the ground. The fourth one is around climate disclosure and greenwashing issues and then the corporate liability and responsibility for harm and the final one on failures failures to adapt to the impacts of climate change. In terms of the fossil fuel one, I would say the kind of most known cases is when the Dutch court ordered Shell to comply with with their targets and the Paris Agreement so that that's still the case there. But please have a look at the report and familiarize yourself. Why I can't give you any legal advice here is that there's many factors. So obviously it's the jurisdiction, the legal code, every single case is a case on its own. And that that's perhaps with Matthew's question that could there be a legal framework holding governments accountable? I think there is opportunities already with existing legal frameworks and those legal frameworks are also catching up with climate ambition. But I do think there's quite a long way still for for something international that could provide legal opportunities there. Thanks. Thank you Nicholas. Next we have a question from Isadora. Thank you for the reflection on how decreasing demand is a key message to leverage to avoid new fossil fuel production materializing. Should civil society and the climate movement focus more on demand? I can take that one if that's in reference to fossil fuel demand and not a solid demand reduction through energy efficiency measures. So I'll go with that. Thanks for your question. I think we need to focus on both. I think focusing on demand is really the narrowing demand for all fossil fuels is really key for kind of forcing a conversation about stranded asset risk. You know, the fact that demand for coal and gas is now all set to peak this decade according to IEA modelling and then you know that's historically been somewhat conservative really shows the huge risk for countries in in pursuing new fossil fuel infrastructure and fossil fuel expansion, not just for the climate damages that that will obviously cause, but also because it is just a huge economic gamble for those countries and to lock themselves into future kind of fossil fuel infrastructure when demand is narrowing presents huge risks to kind of their own economic security. And that I think is that is a message that is important to continuously highlight and by focusing on, you know, continuing to reduce the demand for fossil fuels and showcasing the risk of countries then pursuing more production. We can we can continue to push that the message that you know the only way for fossil fuel the way for fossil fuels is clearly decline and countries need to be getting ready for that or face huge risks. You know, thinking about production and supplies obviously also important and as the report here today shows, there's a lot of kind of fossil fuel producers who invested interest involved that, you know, will will always want to promote continued production of fossil fuels and kind of grappling with that issue even in the face of producing the man is is crucial to get to grips with with the, you know, the overall face out that we need and kind of address the challenges that come with that from all sides. So yeah, that would be my my quick reflection on your question. Thank you. Thank you Katrina. Unfortunately, we only have time for a couple more questions we may not be able to get to everyone. Thank you so much for your continued interest. Let's get to a couple more before we let you go today. We have one from Laura. Do you all provide any guidance for the methods that a country could use to set their extraction based and mission reduction targets. I feel free to jump in. I know you have a long day of boys based in Bangkok and it's getting to be past 11 in the evening for her. So, the guidance that we provide is pretty much the one that you've seen at the end of the presentation and the report which is that clearly the countries that have greater capacity and least dependence on revenues and jobs from fossil fuel production should go fastest. And those with the greatest resources are king related benefits from fossil fuel production should be helping those out. Those countries out who face the greatest transition challenges. There is a literature out there, a small literature, but growing that goes into a bit more detail about how you characterize transition capacity independence and you can find references to that in our report that had a whole chapter devoted to this question in the 2020 production gap reports are for you back chapter for that. Thanks. Thank you and let's get to one more question. In the US power companies are planning to build more than 100 new natural gas plants. What risks do this pose from a climate perspective and a stranded asset perspective. Yeah, I should, you know, being based here in the US and and having worked on on state and local level policy here. I, you know, this is very much an issue right now. And I think the question sort of speaks to its own answer, which is that, you know, each case needs to be evaluated specifically but as the production gap shows and the net zero emissions scenario for from international energy agency shows, there is a little or no room to build out additional new fossil fuel infrastructure. So, it does pose a serious risk it poses a risk of slowing the transition to renewable energy. The benefits of switching from coal to gas, and to the extent that they can materialize have already been realized in places like the US. So at this point, you know, building out gas based capacity, which with all of the incentives that then you need to utilize that capacity as Katrina was pointing to the sort of vested interests that are associated with that, really important to reckon with it's not just purely the sort of utility cost benefit analysis that might be done for a given plant you really have to think about what it means to lock in infrastructure at this point in time so yes, great risks and thanks for the question. Sorry if you'll forgive me we have one more that one of us wants to respond to, and then we'll wrap up. Glenn asks. So, for it, he says it strikes me that no country is going to compromise national security. So diplomacy and accountability on climate is it possible without superior decarbonized military capability. We could just have peace but it seems that nationalism and security seem to justify governments to keep the fossil fuel energy, the fossil energy extraction growing thoughts on that. Thank you I just wanted to quickly comment that the question is definitely kind of beyond my pay grade but I wanted to comment that we are seeing a lot of governments use the need for energy security narrative to justify continued fossil dependence, but as we elaborate on in the production gap report, it's energy that is essential to the fabric of our society, not fossil fuels, and the science now demands that we phase out all fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. And we also know that solar PV and wind and other cheapest forms of new electricity in most countries of the world today. There are so many climate actions and options out there that governments can be focusing on and shifting away from entrenching fossil fuel dependence. So I just wanted to reiterate, again, just how urgent it is that we need governments to commit to phase out all fossil fuels at COP 28 and beyond. Thank you, Lindsay. Thank you so much, ploy. Everyone. Thank you for all your interest in questions. We're sorry we couldn't get to everyone but we encourage the conversation to keep happening far and wide. Everyone, thank you so much for spending your time with us and for learning about this work and we are so proud to share it with you. I'd also like to thank Nicholas, ploy, Michael, Andrea, Neil, Katrina and Angela for sharing findings answering questions and providing some illuminating insight. Thank you also to Ulrika Lambert, Senior Press Officer at SCI for supporting our presentation today. And on behalf of the production gap team, thank you again for your interest in your questions. Have a wonderful rest of your day.