Photo: bbc
France, Sweden and Ireland have joined a Denmark and Costa Rica-led alliance of countries committed to ending future oil and gas production within their borders.
Portugal, California and New Zealand stopped shy of that pledge, but committed to “significant concrete steps” to curb oil and gas production. Italy, the European Union’s second biggest oil producer, made a less ambitious promise, saying it would align future oil and gas extraction with the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The new Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) was hailed as important by campaigners who have been pushing for a global treaty on stopping fossil fuel extraction, modelled on nuclear weapons proliferation treaties. Similar international coalitions have already been established on coal, but not yet on the other two major fossil fuels.
However, the alliance, launched at the COP26 summit in Glasgow today, lacks any significant oil and gas producers promising to end extraction.
The core members of BOGA are Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Greenland, Ireland, Sweden, Wales and the Canadian province of Quebec. Wales doesn’t have the ability to issue oil and gas licences; that power lies with the UK government. Portugal, California and New Zealand are “associate” members of BOGA, while Italy is deemed a “friend” of the coalition.
