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Evidence on unburnable oil, gas & coal: a thread.
Yesterday I asked for your go-to references on ‘unburnable carbon’ – i.e. the amount of oil, coal & gas that must stay in the ground if we’re to meet Paris goals.
Got some great responses – here goes
1/16
Yesterday I asked for your go-to references on ‘unburnable carbon’ – i.e. the amount of oil, coal & gas that must stay in the ground if we’re to meet Paris goals.
Got some great responses – here goes
1/16
Background: fossil companies eg @WCumbriaMining & @The_Banks_Group claim it’s better to open new mines here rather than importing.
But there are already TOO MANY extraction sites worldwide. Investing in additional sites risks carbon overshoot & stranded assets. Evidence:
2/16
But there are already TOO MANY extraction sites worldwide. Investing in additional sites risks carbon overshoot & stranded assets. Evidence:
2/16
First up: credit to @CarbonBubble & @CampanaleMark for popularising the idea of ‘unburnable carbon’, the ‘carbon bubble’, and ‘stranded assets’, over a decade ago. Many reports on their website and this recent video is v good
3/16
3/16
If peer-reviewed is what you need, there are 2 Nature papers –McGlade & Ekins “The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 °C” (but this is not the more stringent Paris target of ‘well below’ 2 °C)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14016
4/16
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14016
4/16
& a more recent survey by Tong et al which looks at 1.5 °C
“Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C climate target”
– as the title suggests, there’s no room for more fossil infrastructure
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1364-3 5/16
“Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5 °C climate target”
– as the title suggests, there’s no room for more fossil infrastructure
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1364-3 5/16
& this in the journal Climatic Change, by Jaccard et al from 2018, which adds in an assessment of financial viability, eg of Canada’s oil sands projects https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-018-2206-2
6/16
6/16
going back a bit, here’s an early paper (2013) from Jim Hansen and colleagues that most fuels need to stay in the ground
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648
& similar from 2014 by Matthews
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111001/meta
7/16
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648
& similar from 2014 by Matthews
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/9/11/111001/meta
7/16
Then there’s the brilliant @UNEP ‘Production Gap’ report, which looks at the gap between what’s needed to meet Paris commitments, and what plans countries have to extract coal, oil & gas (spoiler: it’s quite a gap)
https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/report/production-gap-report-2019
8/16
https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/report/production-gap-report-2019
8/16
And there’s more! This from @IPPR @tomhillonline is particularly good at analysing what all this means for UK policy
https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/faster-further-fairer 9/16
https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/faster-further-fairer 9/16
…. that IPPR report uses this research by NGO @PriceofOil, arguing for a managed decline of fossil production
http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/
10/16
http://priceofoil.org/2016/09/22/the-skys-limit-report/
10/16
here’s a @the_IDB paper on oil production in Latin America and the Caribbean, warning that countries who rely on revenues from oil really need to diversify
https://publications.iadb.org/en/implications-climate-targets-oil-production-and-fiscal-revenues-latin-america-and-caribbean
11/16
https://publications.iadb.org/en/implications-climate-targets-oil-production-and-fiscal-revenues-latin-america-and-caribbean
11/16
& further warning from @ChathamHouse about the perils of low income countries relying on income from fossil fuel production
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/carbon-risk-resilience-how-energy-transition-changing-prospects-countries-fossil#
12/16
https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/carbon-risk-resilience-how-energy-transition-changing-prospects-countries-fossil#
12/16
and just in case you need to be further jolted, see p39 of this, again from @UNEP, which says just how bad things could get if we start exploiting gas hydrates.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1993GasHydrates_Vol2_screen.pdf
13/16
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1993GasHydrates_Vol2_screen.pdf
13/16
A couple of extras: this paper talks about retiring fossil power plants
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab96d3
And this one takes on the all-important topic of how to account for unburnable carbon.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235418300467
14/16
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab96d3
And this one takes on the all-important topic of how to account for unburnable carbon.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235418300467
14/16
So that’s it. For now. It’s pretty conclusive. But, you know, @WCumbriaMining @The_Banks_Group and others, if you think differently, please do tell me which peer-reviewed and similarly respectable studies offer evidence that it’s ok to dig up and burn more.
15/16
15/16
With huge thanks to everyone who commented including
@st_pye @nicklaus_taylor @Eco_melon @SteveDavisUCI @TomBHarrison @damon_matthews @Kretzmann @jim_smoot @cityatlas @theresphysics @jonathangaventa @Glada_Lahn @tomhillonline
@ChathamSian @samwisehawkins @IanPChristie
16/16
@st_pye @nicklaus_taylor @Eco_melon @SteveDavisUCI @TomBHarrison @damon_matthews @Kretzmann @jim_smoot @cityatlas @theresphysics @jonathangaventa @Glada_Lahn @tomhillonline
@ChathamSian @samwisehawkins @IanPChristie
16/16
& really sorry if I missed anyone off this list, tell me & I'll add you!
