Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Supply of Fossil Fuels

The document argues that current climate policies focus too heavily on the demand side, allowing fossil fuel exporting countries to increase production with little impact on their own territorial emissions accounts. It proposes 'extraction-based emissions accounting', which attributes CO2 emissions to the country where fuels are extracted, as a way to promote producer responsibility and identify economic vulnerabilities. The brief notes that countries heavily dependent on high-carbon exports face risks of 'stranded' assets if global demand declines, as projected in some IEA scenarios. Additionally, it suggests integrating life-cycle assessments (LCA) to account for varying upstream emissions, such as those from Canadian oil sands, which can be significantly higher than conventional crude.

• Current climate accounting focuses on the demand side, meaning fossil fuel production typically accounts for only about 5% of CO2 emissions and nearly 10% of overall GHGs, while combustion accounts for approximately 85% of global CO2 emissions.
• Extraction-based emissions accounting attributes CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels to the country of extraction, serving as a reallocation of emissions from the location of combustion to the location of extraction.
• Countries with extraction-based emissions significantly higher than their territorial emissions may face elevated economic risks and reduced competitiveness in a future low-carbon global economy.
• Declines in global coal demand, such as those projected in the IEA's 450 ppm scenario, could lead to depressed prices and the creation of 'stranded' coal extraction assets.
• Upstream (pre-combustion) emissions vary by source; for instance, emissions from Canadian oil sands or Venezuelan heavy oils are roughly three times higher than those from conventional light crude from Saudi Arabia, representing up to 30% of the fuel's combustion emissions on a CO2e basis.
• Regulating emissions at the point of extraction is suggested as a more straightforward method to limit 'emissions leakage', which is the movement of emitting activities between countries due to differing regulation stringency.

APA

Erickson, P., & Lazarus, M. (2013). Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Supply of Fossil Fuels. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-New-fossil-fuel-economy-2.pdf

Chicago

Erickson, Peter, and Michael Lazarus. Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Supply of Fossil Fuels. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2013. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-New-fossil-fuel-economy-2.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Erickson |first1=Peter |last2=Lazarus |first2=Michael |title=Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Supply of Fossil Fuels |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=2013 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-New-fossil-fuel-economy-2.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{erickson2013accounting, author = {Erickson, Peter and Lazarus, Michael}, title = {{Accounting for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Associated with the Supply of Fossil Fuels}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2013}, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/SEI-DB-2013-New-fossil-fuel-economy-2.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }