Reference no: EM133709921
Unburnable Carbon
Climatologists have shown that the earth will become largely uninhabitable if we continue to burn oil, gas, and coal at the rate we have done in recent decades. Major cities will be underwater, and most farmland will be deserted.
Alternative energy sources are, therefore, a priority. But fossil fuels are abundant. We have enough natural gas and coal to last for centuries and enough oil to last 40 - 60 years, even at current high-use rates.
Analysts often refer to these as unburnable carbon because we can burn only a fraction of these fuels without making our planet uninhabitable. Financial investments in these resources are often called stranded assets, because they have no monetary value if they cannot be sold.
Three important obstacles have blocked wider adoption of alternative energy and conservation in recent years. One is inertia: We already have trillions of dollars invested in existing cities, roads and power infrastructure. Replacing all this infrastructure is not easy to budget, even though most of it is gradually and steadily replaced and upgraded.
A second factor is ready availability of abundant fossil fuels. As long as they are easy to use and comparatively cheap to produce, we will have difficulty weaning ourselves from them.
A third obstacle is that owners of this carbon strongly resist energy and climate policies that would turn their wealth into stranded assets. Understandably enough, they have invested millions of dollars in campaigns to block fossil fuel regulation, to support lawmakers who deny climate change, such as sunspots or random variability.
At the same time global subsidies for fossil fuel development, exploration, and marketing exceed $550 billion per year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This is about 4.5 times the $120 billion for all renewable energy. The United States is the world's most generous supporter of fossil fuels, providing about one-fifth of global subsidies. The IEA and other groups have begun to question whether this ratio can be changed.
If you were in charge of energy policy, what would you do? Would you compensate oil and gas companies for their unburnable carbon? Would you try to restrict corporate influence on climate policy, or not? How?