Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2025. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

Executive Summary

In 2021, at the COP28 climate conference in Glasgow, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) was formed. This is a group of national and sub-national governments that have promised to end new oil and gas concessions and licensing or leasing of lands for oil and gas exploration and development. They also set dates aligned with the UN Paris Accord-aligned date for ending oil and gas production. This production-oriented initiative differs from most climate-policy measures which focus on reducing the consumption of hydrocarbons, including oil and gas. BOGA includes 14 countries as full or associate members. It also has four sub-national governments as full or associate members. With one exception, none of these jurisdictions has now or ever had large oil and gas industries. They are essentially vowing not to have what they already lack.

This article will examine how well the goals of BOGA  fit the trends in terms of world supply of oil and natural gas. Some countries with large oil and gas resources produce far less that one might expect from their reserves base due the effects of poor government policies and/or economic sanctions. Both the world natural gas supply and production have increased dramatically in the last decade.