And they mean it
(UK Guardian) Vast amounts of oil in the Middle East, coal in the US, Australia and China and many other fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground to prevent dangerous climate change, according to the first analysis to identify which existing reserves cannot be burned.
The new work reveals the profound geopolitical and economic implications of tackling global warming for both countries and major companies that are reliant on fossil fuel wealth. It shows trillions of dollars of known and extractable coal, oil and gas, including most Canadian tar sands, all Arctic oil and gas and much potential shale gas, cannot be exploited if the global temperature rise is to be kept under the 2C safety limit agreed by the world’s nations. Currently, the world is heading for a catastrophic 5C of warming and the deadline to seal a global climate deal comes in December at a crunch UN summit in Paris.
“We’ve now got tangible figures of the quantities and locations of fossil fuels that should remain unused in trying to keep within the 2C temperature limit,†said Christophe McGlade, at University College London (UCL), and who led the new research published in the journal Nature. The work, using detailed data and well-established economic models, assumed cost effective climate policies would use the cheapest fossil fuels first, with more expensive fuels priced out of a world in which carbon emissions were strictly limited. For example, the model predicts that significant cheap-to-produce conventional oil would be burned but that the carbon limit would be reached before more expensive tar sands oil could be used.
How much is to be left in the ground?
- 82% of coal
- 49% gas (referring to natural gas, mostly)
- 33% of oil
Otherwise, we are like totally doomed…wait, so we can use 67% of the oil reserves? And 51% of natural gas (notice that they are now having a big issue with natural gas). The study itself obviously has major issues with coal, as well as 1st World Nations, along with private and public investment in exploration and use of fossil fuels.
This is the Big Issue of the day for climate change, with lots and lots of articles being written on the subject, predicting dooooooooooooooooom if we don’t leave these fossil fuels reserves in the ground immediately. Yet, Warmists won’t give up their own use of fossil fuels. Weird, huh?
We’ll get away from using fossil fuels when an adequate replacement energy source becomes available, and not before. I would love to see the day when that happens, but I’m not willing to impoverish everyone (except the elites, of course) to see it happen.
What will upset the left the most is the great probability that when a replacement energy source is developed, it will be developed by a capitalist corporation, with the oil companies being the more probable ones to do it. They are the ones with the resources, the technology and the engineers and scientists to be able to figure out the ways to do it.
Dana, and when the capitalists find that energy source I won’t be surprised when the democrats insist the technology be nationalized. I’m totally serious, I think the left is that far gone.
I’m surprised that you’re surprised. The arithmetic supporting the concept of how much CO2-source needs to go unburned to cap global warming is pretty simple.
Do you not “believe” that atmospheric CO2 causes long-term warming?
An open market would make the gradual switch to renewable energy sources, but the energy markets are not open, are they? We subsidize fossil fuels by not holding them responsible for the damage they are causing, especially global warming. If fossil fuels were priced at their true costs, renewables would be more competitive. The market can be made fair by either taxing carbon sources or subsidizing renewables, or using both approaches.
This simple equation is what drives the powerful fossil fuels industries to Deny global warming. It’s about the money.