Many new or prospective hydrocarbons producer countries plan to use their extractive resources to stimulate economic development and growth. The long-term prospect of carbon constraints suggests that this vison is far from certain. Yet to date, there has been little research on the risks and policy options available to new producers on managing carbon risks, avoiding carbon lock-in, safeguarding public health, and capturing benefits for low-carbon diversification.

The current period of lower commodity prices provides a window of opportunity to examine options for maximizing the contribution that a country’s resource base makes to sustainable and equitable economic growth, while ensuring that national development is geared for a swift transition away from fossil fuels. Informed and context-specific choices regarding the pace of hydrocarbons sector development, valuation of resources and externalities, export and industrial infrastructure planning and sequencing, and domestic energy policy will all be crucial to managing the uncertainty presented by longer-term carbon constraints. 

This policy roundtable will draw on the themes presented in the Chatham House research paper Left Stranded? Extractives-led Growth in a Carbon Constrained World in order to explore two key angles of this emerging debate: 1) For countries, how are the risks and opportunities of developing extractive resources changing in a carbon-constrained world, over short- and long-term horizons, and what information and advice are required to manage them? 2) For donors, where are the synergies and conflicts between the promotion of extractives-led growth, and low-carbon, green growth, and how should their offerings to client countries evolve to reflect increasing global and local carbon constraints?