Summary (quick take): New analyses released ahead of Climate Week and the UN General Assembly in late September 2025 reveal a stark mismatch between national plans for fossil-fuel extraction and the international goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C. While global leaders meet in New York and parallel summits press for climate action and investment in clean energy, multiple major producers are planning to increase production — a divergence that scientists and campaigners say could render the 1.5°C target unattainable unless governments rapidly change course. This article examines the evidence behind the claim, the politics shaping national choices, the economic tensions involved, and the practical levers — from finance to regulation to technology — that could still steer the world away from the worst outcomes. The Guardian+2Axios+2
1. A report that reframes the scale of the problem
As world leaders gathered in New York for Climate Week and the UN General Assembly in September 2025, policy analysts released a report with a blunt conclusion: many of the world’s leading fossil-fuel producing nations are planning to extract more coal, oil, and gas over the coming decade — a strategy that, if carried out, would blow a hole in the global carbon budget needed to stay near 1.5°C of warming.
The study — prepared by a coalition of research groups including the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Climate Analytics, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) — examined national production plans and found that a substantial number of major producers intend to expand output through 2030 compared with 2023 levels. That expansion runs directly counter to the pathways scientists say are necessary to keep warming within the 1.5°C target. The Guardian
This is not a technical quibble. It’s a fundamental mismatch between supply planning and climate targets. Historically, international climate goals have focused on demand-side measures — cutting emissions through efficiency, renewables, and behavior change. But greenhouse gases come from the combustion of the fuels nations plan to produce. If supply keeps increasing, it creates emissions that will need to be offset or managed, raising the bar for mitigation and increasing reliance on technologies (like large-scale carbon capture) that are not yet proven at global scale.
2. What the data says: expansion in plain figures
The SEI/Climate Analytics/IISD synthesis points to a stark pattern: among the world’s top producers, only a small number have committed to lower production; several larger economies still plan increases. While the report notes some reductions in coal in certain jurisdictions, expansions in oil and gas are expected in others. The researchers calculate projected production trajectories and map them against modelled 1.5°C pathways; the results show an overshoot unless extraction plans change swiftly. The Guardian
Observers say one way to think about it is this: even if every country met its pledges to cut domestic emissions, a simultaneous global increase in the volume of fossil fuels being produced effectively creates a supply of carbon that will likely be burned unless demand collapses sharply — an outcome that would itself be economically and politically disruptive.
3. Why countries still plan to expand production
If the climate science is clear, why do governments keep green-lighting new projects? The answer lies at the intersection of politics, revenues, energy security, and development:
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Revenue and jobs: For many producers, fossil-fuel extraction is a major source of government revenue, jobs, and regional economic activity. Governments facing fiscal pressure or local demands for employment may prioritize short-term stability over long-term climate commitments.
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Energy security: Some states argue that domestic production reduces reliance on imports and stabilizes domestic energy supplies.
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Geopolitics: Energy policy is entangled with national strategy. Geopolitical tensions can push producers to ensure strategic reserves or to leverage resources for foreign policy goals.
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Infrastructure and sunk costs: Existing pipelines, ports, and mines create political lock-in. Once communities and companies have invested in this infrastructure, it’s politically difficult to reverse course without buy-outs or alternative economic plans.
Policymakers also point to the need for a "just transition" — protecting workers and communities reliant on fossil industries — which complicates abrupt closures of production. But the new modelling warns that incremental transition plans that maintain or increase production are incompatible with the rapid emissions reductions scientists say are needed. The Guardian
4. Climate Week and UNGA 2025: the stage where ambitions meet reality
Climate Week and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) — both convened in New York each September — have become an important platform for leaders, NGOs, financiers, and corporates to showcase commitments and innovations. In 2025, the calendar of events included sessions focused on "the race to deliver energy’s tomorrow," sustainable data-center power, and the business case for resource conservation, among others. These sessions highlighted that parts of the private sector are investing heavily in low-carbon technologies and pushing for regulatory clarity. Axios+1
Yet the contrast was palpable: while panels showcased renewable investment, finance instruments, and new technology pilots, other headlines showed governments and companies still moving forward with major fossil projects. That contradiction is what many activists and scientists described as the central paradox of 2025 climate diplomacy: more attention, money, and discussion than ever before — and still production plans that could erase progress.
5. Who’s expanding and who’s contracting — the uneven map
The analysis leading up to Climate Week shows an unequal global landscape. A handful of producers have signalled plans to decrease extraction — the report named the United Kingdom, Australia, and Norway among those with commitments to reduce certain fuels — while others, including some of the world’s largest emitters and producers, have plans to increase output by 2030 relative to 2023. The Guardian
This unevenness matters for negotiations: producers that see fossil fuels as core to domestic welfare are less likely to accept aggressive supply constraints. Conversely, countries that can transition employment and revenues to other sectors tend to be more open to production limits. International diplomacy must therefore reconcile climate imperatives with development and equity considerations.
6. Economic tensions: prices, demand uncertainty, and stranded-asset risk
Economists point out a complicating factor: global energy markets are volatile and hard to predict. If many countries expand production assuming robust demand, but global demand falls sharply due to policy and technology shifts, the result could be a wave of stranded assets — oil fields and mines that are never profitably exploited. That would produce serious financial losses for investors and could destabilize government revenues in resource-dependent states.
At the same time, abrupt demand declines could depress energy prices, harming economies that rely on export income. The economic risk reinforces political incentives to sustain production even when climate science argues otherwise. It also underscores the need for carefully sequenced policies — including economic transition packages, diversified investments, and insurance-style mechanisms — to protect vulnerable communities and mitigate financial fallout.
7. Finance: where the money flows matters
Finance is the lifeblood of energy projects. A major lever to curb production is to restrict capital flows to new fossil extraction and redirect public and private finance toward renewables, grid upgrades, storage, and demand-side efficiency.
Climate Week highlighted a growing cohort of investors, institutional funds, and banks that are establishing exclusion policies for some fossil projects and scaling climate-aligned portfolios. But global capital markets are fragmented: some major banks and investors remain willing to finance oil, gas, and coal projects, particularly where political and contractual risk is low. The result is a patchwork financing environment that allows new fossil projects to proceed in some jurisdictions. Axios
International financial institutions and sovereign lenders can play a critical role by conditioning finance on climate-aligned transition plans. For lower-income, resource-dependent countries, concessional finance and targeted support can ease the burden of shifting away from fossil revenues.
8. Technology, projections, and the “last resort” of carbon removal
Supporters of continued gas and oil development sometimes justify their position by pointing to carbon removal and capture technologies — ideas that imply we can keep burning some fossil fuels if we capture the CO₂ later. But most models that rely heavily on large-scale carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) or negative emissions (like bioenergy with carbon capture) assume rapid scale-up of technologies that remain expensive, unproven at scale, or contested on environmental and social grounds.
Relying on unproven negative-emissions technologies as an excuse to expand supply is a high-stakes gamble. If the technologies fail to scale, the world could lock in emissions that push temperatures beyond safer thresholds. Scientists and many policymakers therefore argue for prioritizing immediate demand reduction and renewable build-out, not optimistic bets on future removal. The Guardian
9. The politics of accountability: transparency and production-based commitments
Most international climate frameworks have focused on national emissions reductions — accounting for the greenhouse gases released within a country’s borders. Less attention has historically been paid to production-based commitments: pledges that limit how much fossil fuel a country will extract. But the new research suggests production targets (or limits on new licenses) could be necessary complement to demand-side policies.
Calls for greater transparency — public registries of permits, mandated disclosure of production plans, and clearer reporting on fossil fuel project pipelines — were louder at Climate Week and UNGA 2025. Transparency would also make it easier for investors, regulators, and civil society to track whether national plans align with global goals. Axios
10. Potential policy levers to align supply and climate goals
Experts propose a set of policy tools to reduce the production gap while protecting development needs:
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Moratoria on new fossil licenses in high-income countries combined with compensatory mechanisms for affected workers and regions.
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Phased retirement plans for existing high-emitting assets paired with financings for economic diversification.
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Carbon pricing that internalizes the climate cost of burning fuels and reduces the incentive to approve new extraction.
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Public finance reform that stops direct or indirect subsidies to new fossil projects and shifts support to clean energy and transition assistance.
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International agreements or accords that constrain aggregate production in line with carbon budgets, possibly with transfer mechanisms so that poorer countries still receive development support.
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Transparency and accountability frameworks requiring governments and companies to disclose extraction plans and to compare them publicly with science-based pathways. The Guardian+1
Each lever has political obstacles, but together they point to a policy mix that could make production consistent with the carbon budget.
11. The role of cities, corporates and civil society
Beyond national governments, cities, corporations, and civil society are increasingly influential. Corporate commitments to renewable energy and net-zero targets — when backed by credible near-term actions — can reduce demand for fossil fuels. Municipal procurement (for example, for electrified transport, buildings, and municipal fleets) can shrink local demand and set market examples.
Climate Week’s programming made clear that many private actors are trying to accelerate this shift — from corporate buyers pledging to decarbonize supply chains to tech firms promising carbon reductions for data-center operations. Civil society groups, in turn, are using litigation, shareholder activism, and public campaigns to press companies and governments to stop new fossil projects and disclose production plans. Axios
12. The equity question: developed vs developing world
Arguably the hardest political issue is fairness. Many low-income countries argue they need room to exploit their natural resources to finance development, health, education, and poverty alleviation. Blanket global prohibitions on production without financial mechanisms to replace lost revenues would be unjust and politically unworkable.
International mechanisms that provide finance, technology transfers, and capacity building — effectively paying for staged, funded transitions away from fossil dependency — are central to any equitable solution. Ideas frequently discussed include transition bonds, sovereign insurance for lost commodity revenues, and international trust funds to support economic diversification. These solutions are complex and require trust — hard to build when global leaders simultaneously call for cuts but plan expansions. The Guardian
13. Voices from the field: industry, scientists and campaigners
Industry voices emphasize energy security, jobs, and investment stability. They underscore that abrupt supply constraints could disrupt markets and livelihoods. Scientists responding to these claims stress that the climate system has physical limits: excess production increases the cumulative carbon released into the atmosphere and reduces the chance of meeting the 1.5°C target. Activists, meanwhile, argue that continued investments in extraction represent a structural failure: a mismatch between rhetoric at summits and reality on the ground.
This triad — industry, science, activism — shapes public debate and policy. At Climate Week and UNGA, these voices clashed and converged: panels recognized the need for economic transition and social safeguards while critics warned that commitments without supply constraints are hollow. Axios+1
14. What success looks like: scenarios in which the 1.5°C goal remains viable
To keep 1.5°C within reach, multiple changes must occur in parallel:
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Rapid decline in fossil-fuel production plans: producers must stop expanding, cap output, and phase out the most carbon-intensive projects.
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Accelerated renewable deployment: vast increases in wind, solar, storage and grid modernization to replace fossil power.
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Demand management: efficiency, modal shifts (e.g., public transport), and behavioral changes reduce energy intensity.
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Finance reallocation: public and private finance flows heavily into low-carbon infrastructure rather than new fossil projects.
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Equitable transition mechanisms: international transfers and domestic policies protect workers and communities.
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Realistic role for carbon removal: while valuable, such technologies are treated as a limited backstop, not a license to expand supply.
If these elements are combined in the near term, modelers show that the carbon budget can still be managed without relying on extreme levels of negative emissions. But the window is narrow and closing fast. The Guardian
15. Obstacles and the near-term horizon
Despite the clear blueprint, obstacles persist: geopolitical distrust, lobbying by incumbents, short political cycles, and the inertia of existing infrastructure. The year 2025 has seen many high-profile announcements and private pledges, but also fresh approvals for projects that lock in decades of emissions. The timing matters: each new long-lived fossil asset authorized or financed today increases the risk that the world will overshoot its carbon budget. The Guardian
16. What to watch next
Several practical milestones will signal whether the world is moving toward alignment or more divergence:
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Concrete production targets or moratoria: Are any major producers willing to publicly cap or reduce planned extraction?
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Financial policy shifts: Do major multilateral banks and large private financiers implement strict exclusions for new fossil projects?
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Domestic policy changes in big emitters: Will leading economies adopt binding measures that limit approvals for new oil, gas, and coal infrastructure?
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International mechanisms for transition finance: Will donors and global institutions scale up programs to compensate resource-dependent states for managed declines in production?
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Corporate purchasing behavior: Are major buyers of energy (manufacturers, tech giants, transport fleets) shifting sourcing rapidly enough to reduce demand for fossil fuels?
Watch how closing sessions of Climate Week and speeches at UNGA address these markers — rhetoric alone won’t suffice; concrete policy and finance decisions are required. Axios+1
17. Conclusion: a narrow path and a choice about the future
The evidence gathered and highlighted around Climate Week and the UN General Assembly in September 2025 frames a stark question: will national production plans be revised to fit within a livable carbon budget — or will the global community continue to debate ambition while permitting supply expansions that make that ambition unattainable?
The answer will not come from words alone. It will come from the choices made by governments, investors, corporations, and communities in the next few years. The science is clear about what is required; the politics and economics explain why it has been so hard to get there. Reconciling those realities — while protecting development and livelihoods — is the central policy challenge of our time. The choices taken in the aftermath of Climate Week and UNGA 2025 will determine whether the world is on a path to keep 1.5°C alive, or whether that target fades as a relic of earlier pledges.