Over the past few decades, there has been a growing recognition of the need for low-carbon development to address the challenges of climate change and achieve sustainable growth. This paper reviews the advancement, specifically examining the differences in carbon intensity in the Global South in the Oil and Gas sector. Greenhouse gas emissions, a major driver of global climate change, stem from a wide range of economic activities. The primary and service sectors are generally less emission-intensive than the secondary ones, including industrial processes and waste management. The secondary industry plays a significant role in total emissions, particularly in high-income countries, leading to them per-capital emissions. The Global North (GN) has failed to deliver on its promises to take the lead and provide comprehensive assistance to the Global South (GS) to undertake low-carbon development. Our is to assess the extent of alignment between low-carbon development (LCD) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the sectoral level in the GS. Low-carbon development is characterised by reduced greenhouse gas emissions and increased energy efficiency and is seen as a way to promote economic growth and social development while minimizing the negative impacts of climate change. The paper reviews the recent trends in emissions from oil and gas sectors. Research on practical action paths for the oil and gas sector’s low-carbon development is critical to achieving the Paris Agreement goals. Global climate changes need quick energy shifts for reduced carbon emissions, from traditional fossil fuels to renewable and justifiable clean energy. In the next few decades, fossil fuels, particularly oil and gas, will continue to dominate the primary energy sector. Therefore, instead of abandoning fossil fuels and looking for unreasonable carbon mitigation technologies, decarbonise oil and gas will be feasible and contribute more to low-carbon transitions. Based on the oil and gas historical carbon emissions and the new possible trends in the future, we designed a model to predict oil and gas carbon emissions. Then it adopts a scenario analysis of the total oil and gas demand sector. We quantitatively simulated the emission reduction effects of different policy measures under different scenarios, such as feasibility assessment, resources potential evaluation, and techno-economic analysis. The results provide paths and measures for the low-carbon development of oil and gas operations and provide policy suggestions for the scientific formulation of the low-carbon development. Future work will include low-carbon economic strategies investment to support development in the future.

Authors: A.R. Adeyemi, T.K. Olaniyi

Published in: World Congress on Sustainable Technologies (WCST-2024)

• Date of Conference: 4-6 November 2024
• DOI: 10.20533/WCST.2024.0004
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-77-8
• Conference Location: St Anne’s College, Oxford University, UK