Could Global Tide Be Starting To Turn Against Fossil Fuels?
From an oil chill in the financial world to the recent U.S.-China agreement on climate change, recent developments are raising a question that might once have been considered unthinkable: Could this be the beginning of a long, steady decline for the oil and coal industries?
Boom may be turning to bust for fossil fuels. Market forces are combining with the prospect of new limits on carbon emissions from major economies such as China and the United States to prick the carbon bubble. Many analysts are now suggesting that — with prices falling and production costs rising — the coming year could be the moment when investors realize the game is up for the coal and oil industries.
Nations found it hard to make progress at UN climate negotiations in Lima last year, making many observers skeptical of the prospects of a legally-binding deal to cut emissions of carbon dioxide as planned in Paris at the end of this year. But, with or without a deal, the tide is turning against investing in fossil fuels, says Jeremy Leggett, one of the most durable climate campaigners of the past quarter-century, who is now chair of Carbon Tracker, a think tank on finance, energy, and climate.
“Watching the wave of investor pressure wash across carbon-fuel capital expenditure in the closing months of 2014, I now think this is how the carbon war can be won,” Leggett, who formerly was science director for Greenpeace and founder of a successful British solar energy company, says. “The way things are shaping up, negotiations in Paris might be playing catch-up to the markets.”
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