Ploy Achakulwisut, PhD

River or sankey diagram showing the allocation of profits from global oil and gas companies to quantiles of the US wealth size distribution via financial system intermediaries, such as asset managers, and categories of ultimate beneficiaries, such as business owners, pension funds and shareholders in listed companies. The scale is hundreds of billions of US dollars, and ultimately 50.4% of profits reaching the US personal wealth distribution go to the richest 1% of households.

🚨NEW PAPER🚨
We all know the 2022 energy price shock fueled the cost of living crisis. It also caused a profit bonanza for the very rich. We show the US reaped the largest profits ($377bn) of any country. 50% went to the richest 1%, only 1% to the bottom 50%. A🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A solar farm next to a volcano surrounded by forest with a translucent white box over it reading, "Center for Global Sustainability's new analysis showcases how Indonesia can achieve: 46-49% GHG emissions reduction by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2060."

As a major emerging economy, Indonesia's clean energy transition is key to keeping global climate goals alive.

A new CGS report outlines how Indonesia can achieve 46-49% GHG reductions by 2035 through high-ambition, economy-wide actions: go.umd.edu/Indonesia2035Ambition

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/5ba8caec-61d3-4aa9-a877-9b200ef4b5b0 Will Jordan, chief legal and policy officer at EQT, a leading US gas producer, also thought that any glut would be temporary, and said US demand was also rising on the boom in power-hungry artificial intelligence data centres. Recommended Oil & Gas industry BP’s new chair signals more asset sales and demands faster restructuring “Supply leads demand — you put the supply on the market and demand gets created.,” he said. “Over the long term we’re very bullish.”

Please enjoy this executive at one of America's biggest gas companies openly admitting that expanding supply leads to increased demand for fossil fuels

He is not wrong: frantic expansion of fossil fuel supply worsens climate change. Tax it, cut subsidies, wind it down

www.ft.com/content/5ba8...

The 2025 edition of the #ProductionGapReport by @sei.org et al. is out now! As Christiana Figueres eloquently put in the foreword: The clarity from the #ICJ Advisory Opinion that fossil fuel production and exploration could violate international law must translate into action as we head for #COP30.

Photo of smiling Christiana Figueres, founding partner of Global Optimism and former Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC. A quote next to her photo reads, "Let this report be both a warning and a guide. What we need now is courage and solidarity to move forward at great speed with the just transition." At the bottom reads, "For more information, visit productiongap.org. Next to that are logos of the organizations that produced the report: Stockholm Environment Institute, International Institute for Sustainable Development and Climate Analytics.

To make up for lost ground and steer the world toward a Paris Agreement-aligned track, we must rapidly and steeply wind down #FossilFuel production & use to the lowest levels possible.

Production Gap Report 2025 The 2025 Production Gap Report assesses governments’ planned and projected production of coal, oil, and gas against global levels consistent with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal. Watch our…

🚨 BREAKING: Governments plan to produce over 2x the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, says the new #ProductionGap Report.

Read the report here: productiongap.org
🧵

youtu.be/k7PkESU_1r4

Photo of oil refinery piping extending over a body of water. Overlaid blue graphic reading: "Production Gap Report 2025. Online launch event. Featuring special guest Mary Robinson. 22 September. 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. EDT on Zoom. Gain exclusive insights into the findings of the latest report detailing the discrepancy between governments' global fossil fuel production plans and the Paris Agreement. For more information, visit productiongap.org." Logos of the organizations that produced the Production Gap Report line the bottom of the graphic: Stockholm Environment Institute, International Institute for Sustainable Development and Climate Analytics. Photo credit: Steve Satushek / The Image Bank via Getty Images

📣 NEW: Former Irish President and member of @theelders.bsky.social Mary Robinson will join Monday's launch of the #ProductionGap Report.

Register now to hear her remarks and learn how global #FossilFuel production plans steer us away from the 1.5°C warming limit.

buff.ly/kXT0r4d

#ClimateWeekNYC

Photo of oil refinery piping extending over a body of water. Overlaid text reads, "Production Gap Report 2025. Online launch event. Gain exclusive insights into the findings of the latest report detailing the discrepancy between governments' global fossil fuel production plans and the Paris Agreement. 22 September, 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. EDT, 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. CEST on Zoom. For more information, visit productiongap.org." At the bottom are logos for Stockholm Environment Institute, IISD and Climate Analytics.

🗣️ JOIN US: The 2025 Production Gap Report launches 22 Sep!

Register today to be among the first to learn the findings of this year’s report.

🕞 3:30 p.m. CEST / 2:30 p.m. GMT / 9:30 a.m. EDT
📅 22 Sep
🔗 buff.ly/d5timKP

@climateanalytics.org @iisd.org
#ProductionGap

💡 New resource from @e3g.bsky.social -- How are countries' new #NDCs reflecting the GST-1 energy transition outcomes?

23 countries target domestic fossil fuel consumption cuts...

No country has provided a quantified target for winding down oil & gas production.

www.e3g.org/publications...

A risk-averse approach is holding back investment in African renewables projects, which need to be well-structured and supported by blended finance and guarantees, energy funders say
www.climatechangenews.com/2025/09/10/t...

NEW | China’s clean energy boom and rapid electrification are creating the conditions for a FOSSIL DECLINE at home and abroad⚡

Fossil use in end-use sectors plateaued in 2015--while electricity use grew 65%, becoming central to 🇨🇳’s energy system.

https://loom.ly/psjqvhE

🏭 "Air pollution from oil and gas causes 90,000 premature US deaths each year", reports @theguardian.com.

Former SEI scientist @ploya.bsky.social, co-authored a study finding that marginalized groups face the greatest exposure to oil and gas-related #AirPollution and its health impacts.

The first evidence of a take-off in solar in Africa | Ember There has been a major pick-up in solar panel imports into Africa over the last 12 months - a shift that is likely to impact almost every country on the continent.

"The solar panels imported into Sierra Leone in the last 12 months, if installed, would generate electricity equivalent to 61% of the total reported 2023 electricity generation" #EnergySky

ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

New Tool Maps the Health Impacts of Toxic Air Pollutants Released with Methane in Super-Emitter Events - Inside Climate News When oil and gas infrastructure leaks the potent greenhouse gas methane, it also releases toxic air contaminants that have escaped notice, until now.

My latest @insideclimatenews.org piece looks at a new tool from PSE Healthy Energy that maps the health risks of the #climate super-pollutant #methane.
“Natural gas is not just methane. It's actually closer to a chemical soup,” said PSE's Seth Shonkoff /1 insideclimatenews.org/news/2608202...

⛽ A new @ScienceAdvances study co-authored at SEI by @ploya.bsky.social details the ethnic & geographic impact of #AirPollution stemming from the US #OilAndGas industry.

Here's what the team found 🧵

Law Firm Pressures Brown University to Erase Research on Anti-Wind Groups

My lab's been attacked by an anti-wind group and their lawyers. They threatened the science funding of my whole university, to shut me and my undergraduate research assistants up.

NYT just covered it. 1/n

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...

Thank you! The paper should be accessible as Science Advances is an open-access journal :)

Thank you! And thank you for flagging this important RMI project! To expand this kind of health impacts assessment beyond the US we would also need detailed air pollutant emissions beyond GHGs alone, like those compiled in the US EPA's 2017 National Emissions Inventory for the oil and gas sector.

P.s. This work was done while at @sei.org and in my personal capacity since. All views expressed in this thread are my own.

Thanks so much and thank you for kindly helping to amplify it! 🙏

A/HRC/59/42: The imperative of defossilizing our economies - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change The present report clarifies States’ international human rights obligations and businesses’ responsibilities to phase out fossil fuels and related subsidies within the current decade. The interlinked,...

Lastly, see also this terrific report on the #HumanRights imperative of "defossilizing" our economies by @unsrclimatehrights.bsky.social www.ohchr.org/en/documents...

It's time to move beyond "carbon tunnel vision" As we decarbonize our energy system, we must address not only carbon emissions, but also the harmful public health and environmental impacts of oil and gas extraction.

3) Why striving for "net-zero" emissions shouldn't be the only be-all and end-all, and how this can lead to perverse greenwashing branding of "clean" fossil fuels (which are a complete fallacy). www.sei.org/perspectives...

The missing maths: the human cost of fossil fuels | Ploy Achakulwisut Ploy Achakulwisut: We should account for the costs of disease and death from fossil fuel pollution in climate change policies

2) Why our new study provides yet another compelling case for the need to accelerate the phase-out of oil and gas production and consumption with hard numbers: to save lives and minimize injustices in the near and long term.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Global fossil fuel reduction pathways under different climate mitigation strategies and ambitions - Nature Communications An analysis of the IPCC AR6 scenarios database explores how quickly coal, oil, and gas production and use should be reduced in line with net-zero goals, and points to the need to adopt phase...

Some more related research/writings from me:

1) How quickly can and should we transition away from fossil fuels to align with 1.5°C-consistent pathways?
Evidence from global mitigation scenarios assessed in the #IPCC #AR6

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The health burden and racial-ethnic disparities of air pollution from the major oil and gas lifecycle stages in the United States Largest total population health burden is from O&G end-use, but greatest relative disparities are linked to downstream activities.

Besides the imperative to phase out oil and gas, our work also shows the importance of data integrity and transparency, and regulations on air pollution and environmental justice to protect the public.

📄 Read our open-access paper at: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Historic redlining and the siting of oil and gas wells in the United States - Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology - Historic redlining and the siting of oil and gas wells in the United States

...Much of this disparity stems from a legacy of #redlining zoning practices that relegated certain populations to live near pollution hotspots. Permitting of oil refineries and petrochemical facilities is another factor.

See, e.g., this 2023 paper by González et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

91,000 Premature Deaths Each Year Linked to US Air Pollution Air pollution from oil and gas production and use in the U.S. has an enormous health toll. A new study tallies the cost.

#4 Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic groups are consistently the most affected by O&G air pollution and adverse health outcomes. Relative inequities are most extreme from downstream activities, especially for the Black population living in #CancerAlley LA & eastern TX. time.com/7311655/us-o...

#3 The greatest health burden from all O&G stages are found in the most populated states (CA, TX, NY, PA, NJ). End-use activities dominate all incidences, except for cancer risk in specific states with large O&G extraction basins, such as CO, TX, and ND.

#2 Around 1-in-5 preterm births and adult deaths linked to fine particulate pollution, and nearly 90% of new childhood asthma cases tied to nitrogen dioxide pollution, are from the O&G sector.

Air pollution from oil and gas causes 90,000 premature US deaths each year, says new study Study analyzed health impacts of fossil fuels from exploration to end use, and found communities of color bear brunt of harm

Our key findings include:
#1 Annual outdoor air pollution from the oil and gas (O&G) sector leads to 91,000 premature deaths, 10,350 pre-term births, and 216,000 new cases of childhood asthma per year, and 1,610 lifetime cancers across the US.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...