“Global Witness withdraws report on Guyana, cites overestimation of potential economic benefits from oil production”, 11 January 2021

...The climate emergency is the greatest threat facing the world...For Global Witness this has meant redirecting our efforts to fighting the main drivers of the climate crisis...Our February 2020 report on Guyana’s oil sector, Signed Away, is not consistent with that focus and for this reason that we have decided to remove it from our website and stop using it in our campaigning work. We regret any unintended negative consequences arising from the report, including its stifling of debate within Guyana around actions to address climate change...Our...report focused on how much revenue Guyana could obtain from oil if the government negotiated a fairer deal with oil major Exxon...Under the new organisational strategy we have rolled out this year, this is not a scenario that we would accept because greenhouse gases have to fall by half over the next decade, for the sake of the planet and all of us living on it…[The]...factors led us to overestimate the potential economic benefit of oil extraction. Based on feedback from civil society representatives in Guyana, we recognise that our report has made it harder for them to argue the case for cessation of oil production in their country. Global Witness’ decision to withdraw Signed Away is not an endorsement of the way Exxon or Guyanese officials negotiated the oil licences awarded to the company...