The sun sets on an oil field | by swisscan

Unburnable carbon

If we are to prevent catastrophic climate change and stay below the 'safe' 2°C threshold then much of our remaining fossil fuel reserves will have to remain firmly in the ground.

It's ironic that, as awareness of climate change rises, more money flows into the fossil fuel industries. Markets are 're-carbonising' when they should be 'de-carbonising'. nef wants to keep the ‘unburnable carbon’ of coal, oil, and gas in the ground.

Despite the scientific and political consensus on global warming, high oil prices driven by dwindling reserves and competition for their control made the market more lucrative. Market dynamics create more incentive to extract fossil fuels, not less. Once more marginal sources, such as tar sands, are now becoming more valuable and attractive.

We need to start seeing fossil fuels as a liability, not an asset. The reserves of fuel we have left need to be seen as unburnable: there can be no price for carbon which pushes over the climate cliff. In order to limit climate change to within the 'safe' 2°C threshold, we need to leave much of this carbon in the ground.

The problem with technofixes
nef does not believe that we can rely on unproven technologies to sort our problems out. There are no magic bullets that avoid the need for rapid decarbonisation of the economy. Carbon capture and storage, for example, is unproven and unlikely to be commercially viable until at least 2025: far too late to stop the worst damage, and even then carrying enormous risks.

Too many responses to climate change, and the peak and decline of fossil fuels, are based on the assumption that conventional economic growth can continue forever. nef believes that if we are to tackle climate change effectively, we will need to abandon economic growth in favour of measures of progress which deliver human well-being within ecological limits.

Key facts

  1. 1
    Less than half the oil and gas reserves which have been proven economically recoverable can be burned up to 2050 if we are to avoid potentially irreversible climate change
  2. 2
    Approximately 65 per cent of the annual growth in carbon dioxide emissions is due to the increase in global economic activity
  3. 3
    According to cautious calculations, from 1 August 2008, we have less than 100 months to go before we pass a tipping point for runaway climate change