Carbon bubble
[9] An estimate made by Kepler Cheuvreux puts the loss in value of the fossil fuel companies due to the impact of the growing renewables industry at US$28 trillion over the next two decades.
[15] The term "carbon bubble" arose in the early 21st century from the increasing awareness of the impact of fossil fuel combustion on global temperatures.
[18] A widely shared article by Bill McKibben was published in Rolling Stone magazine in July 2012, bringing the idea to the attention of a popular audience.
In 2011, the Carbon Tracker Initiative calculated that at that point the world could only burn 20% of its carbon-based fuel reserves if it wished to stay below a 2°C increase that has been agreed upon by the UNFCCC members.
[21] Author Bill McKibben has estimated that to sustain human life in the world, up to US$20 trillion worth of fossil fuel reserves will need to remain in the ground.
[15] The Stern report in 2006 stated that the benefits of strong, early action to decrease the use of oil, coal and gas considerably outweigh the costs.
[23] In 2015, Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, in his lecture to Lloyd's of London, warned that limiting global warming to 2°C appears to require that the "vast majority" of fossil fuel reserves be "stranded assets", or "literally unburnable without expensive carbon-capture technology", resulting in "potentially huge" exposure to investors in that sector.
To meet the 2 °C target, strong measures would be needed to suppress demand, such as a substantial carbon tax leaving a lower price for the producers from a smaller market.
Open-pit mining of bituminous sands in Canada would soon drop to negligible levels after 2020 in all scenarios considered because it is considerably less economic than other methods of production.
[25][26][27][28][29] In mid-2015, the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge published a report assessing the risks from climate change in order to estimate the amount of resources that should be allocated to address them.
The report notes that "standard economic estimates of the global costs of climate change are wildly sensitive both to assumptions about the science, and to judgments about the value of human life.
[31] In early 2014, the FTSE Group, BlackRock and the Natural Resources Defense Council collaborated in the creation of a stock market index series that excludes companies linked to exploration, ownership or extraction of carbon-based fossil fuel reserves.
[32][33] It has been proposed that companies be required by law to report on their greenhouse gas emissions and assess the risk this could pose to their future financial performance.
[46][56] Combining roof photovoltaics with second hand EV batteries will further reduce the dependence on fossil fuels as they will provide the needed grid storage for the times when the intermittent renewable energy sources are not producing electricity.
[57] Innovations in, for example, information technology, miniaturisation, LEDs, virtual reality, 3D printing, new materials and biotechnology enable energy reduction in the areas of human sustenance and travel, as well as physical product creation and distribution.
According to research by U.S. PIRG Education Fund reported in late 2014: "Over the last decade – after 60-plus years of steady increases – the number of miles driven by the average American has been falling.
