Shareholders and clients of one of the most important banking entities in Spain received a newsletter at the end of April in which they were encouraged to invest in a new project by the Portuguese company Galp Energia. The banking information included a striking headline (New deposit in Namibia, transcendental discovery?) and accepted Galp’s estimate indicating that reserves of 10,000 million barrels of hydrocarbons have been found in this southern African country.
In recent years, Shell (United Kingdom) and TotalEnergies (France) have discovered similarly multimillion-dollar reserves in the Orange Basin and the coast of Namibia and, in most cases, local authorities have already granted permits for massive exploitation. of oil and gas.
Namibia is a clear example of the contradiction between the objectives set to address climate change (by reducing the emission of gases such as those produced by the combustion of oil) and the interests shared by countries with hydrocarbon reserves and companies in the sector.
The International Energy Agency (in the update of the Net Zero Roadmap), the IPCC and studies as notable as the one published in the journal Nature by experts from University College London have indicated that if the objective of the Paris Agreement is to be achieved If a temperature increase of 1.5 ºC is not exceeded, it is essential to quickly reduce the combustion of hydrocarbons; and, among other measures, they have proposed that a good part of the present and future resources of coal, oil and gas continue to be kept underground (without being extracted or consumed).
However, the reality of new hydrocarbon extraction megaprojects such as those announced in recent years and the constant increase in global consumption of these fossil fuels (see supplement at the bottom) point in a completely opposite direction to the fight against climate change. .
“Namibia and Guyana – which has great plans led by ExxonMobil [United States] – are the two best examples of reserves recently found in countries that until now did not stand out in the production of hydrocarbons,” says Mariano Marzo, emeritus professor of Stratigraphy. and Historical Geology from the University of Barcelona. “And the problem is not only that new reserves are found in Namibia or Guyana, but that many oil and gas resources continue to be discovered in traditionally producing countries and that new sources such as fracking provide immense resources, for example in the United States,” Professor Marzo explains to La Vanguardia.
Data from the Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker (database of the Global Energy Monitor, an NGO specialized in the analysis of energy resources based in San Francisco, USA) indicates that in 2023, 19 new large hydrocarbon deposits were discovered, with estimated reserves of 7,700 million barrels of oil equivalent (BEP) and, also last year, the exploitation of at least 20 large fields was authorized, which could total the extraction of 8,000 million BEP. By the end of this decade, companies in the sector intend to receive approval for projects that would add 31.2 billion BEP, in 64 additional fields, indicates the Global Energy Monitor database.
“Developing countries like Namibia and Guyana are not going to give up exploiting the resources they have now discovered, no matter how much rich countries like the European Union or even the International Energy Agency defend that oil and gas should be left underground. to protect the climate,” says Mariano Marzo. Regarding the responsibility of the large oil companies that lead the extraction of oil and gas in new fields, Professor Marzo raises the following reflection: “as much as it may be to us, if these Western multinationals don’t do it, China or even Russia will.” .
Francisco del Pozo, director of fossil fuel campaigns at Greenpeace Spain, regrets that many oil and gas companies, “among them, the Spanish Repsol”, continue to search for and exploit new deposits and, at the same time, “try to make us believe that they really have decarbonization plans and work against climate change.” “The large companies in the sector are doing greenwashing to hide their shame, which is none other than continuing to extract large quantities of fossil fuels and looking for new deposits without really caring about the impact on climate change.”
Scientific studies and UN recommendations “point out the urgent need to leave a good part of the existing coal, oil and gas underground,” says Del Pozo. To achieve this objective, “it is necessary to plan on a global scale and decide which resources should stop being exploited, taking into account that the first to stop extracting are the rich countries, which are precisely the ones that have been responsible for the longest time.” of the emissions that cause climate change; A clear example is fracking in the United States, which should be stopped immediately.” “The prohibition of fossil fuel exploitation in countries where human rights are violated or especially serious damage to the environment is caused must also be prioritized,” indicates the spokesperson for Greenpeace Spain. “In any case, it is essential that the energy transition and the abandonment of fossil fuels be carried out in compliance with the global emissions reduction objectives to avoid an increase in temperatures above 1.5 ºC.”
Marina Gros Breto, coordinator of the Energy and Climate Area of ??the Confederation of Ecologists in Action, highlights the study whose results were published in 2021 in the journal Nature, which points out “the reserves of fossil fuels that should remain unexploited.” globally to stay within the 50% chance of complying with the Paris Agreement.” “According to the article, in 2050, almost 60% of fossil oil and methane gas, and 90% of coal, will have to remain unextracted to stay within a carbon budget that does not cause the 1.5 ° to be exceeded. C temperature”, indicates Marina Gros. The spokesperson for Ecologists in Action, in this sense, also invites you to learn about the international initiative of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has been supported by the European Parliament on October 20, 2022.
