Climate researchers are urging that fossil fuel extraction come to a complete halt if governments are to stall temperature rise. We asked business experts and investors to weigh in
To prevent the Earth from overheating, countries must leave vast reserves of fossil fuels untouched underground. That’s the conclusion of a new report published this week in the journal Nature. Trillions of dollars of known and extractable coal, oil and gas – including deposits in Canada and the Arctic – cannot be burned if the global temperature rise is to be kept under the agreed-upon goal of 2C.
While much of the carbon math is known – about three to five times more carbon in reserve than can be burned to stay within the world-set temperature limit – this is the first study to look at exactly where those fossil fuels are.