COP26: Wales joins ‘first-of-its-kind’ alliance of governments pledging to stop oil and gas production

Wales is among a group of governments that have launched a pioneering international alliance to phase out oil and gas production.

Wales, France, Greenland, Ireland, Sweden and the Canadian province Quebec joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) formed by Denmark and Costa Rica in September.

BOGA is a first-of-its-kind alliance of governments determined to set an end date for their oil and gas exploration and extraction.

The alliance employs a tiered membership structure with gradually raising levels of ambition.

Meet the members of the #BeyondOilAndGasAlliance🌏. We are thrilled to announce the membership of Quebec, France🇫🇷, Sweden🇸🇪, Ireland🇮🇪, Wales🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 & Greenland🇬🇱 as Core Members and California, Portugal🇵🇹 & New Zealand🇳🇿 as Associate Members and Italy🇮🇹 as Friends of #BOGA #COP26 pic.twitter.com/I6roWkAVQd

— The Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance (@beyondoilgas) November 11, 2021

As a Core member of BOGA, Wales has committed to end new concessions, licensing or leasing rounds for oil and gas production and exploration and to set a Paris-aligned date for ending oil and gas production and exploration on the territory over which they have jurisdiction.

“The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance raises the bar from climate action. If we want to address the climate crisis, we need a managed but decisive phase out of oil and gas production.”

“I am delighted that new members are joining forces with Costa Rica and Denmark to set a date for the end of fossil fuel production.”

“We invite other national and subnational governments to join BOGA and align their oil and gas production with the goals of the Paris Agreement”.

Quite a day at #COP26 – here’s a thread on what stood out

We’re righty hard on ourselves on progress in Wales but throughout COP we’ve been highlighted as a leading example. Good to discuss lessons with people from Mexico and China this morning on what cities and regions can do pic.twitter.com/8zRvEBVeTY

— Lee Waters MS (@Amanwy) November 11, 2021

The founding members all signed up to the BOGA Declaration pledging to support a socially just and equitable global transition to align oil and gas production with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, this will be followed-up by concrete action.

Wales’ deputy minister for climate change, Lee Waters, said membership showed that Wales was “at the forefront of meeting the global challenges of climate change”.

“Decision making powers over licencing for oil and gas exploration and extraction in Wales were devolved from the UK Government to the Welsh Government in 2018 and, since then, no new licences have been granted and a number of extant licences have been surrendered or terminated.”

“We are extremely pleased to join this new alliance today, which shows how Wales is at the forefront of meeting the global challenges of climate change and will soon be sharing lessons and experiences with other nations.”

“In our recently published Net Zero Wales Plan, we have committed to using all of our powers to phase out fossil fuels, through our planning frameworks, licensing powers and our policy frameworks which set out a strong presumption against new fossil fuelled power plant.”

“Our vision is for a decarbonised energy system which provides wider economic and social benefits for Wales than the system we see today and. we believe that replacing fossil fuels with low carbon sources will help Wales create the industries and jobs of the future.”

Boris Johnson declined to sign up the UK to the new alliance.