Christophe McGlade on who gets left with the unburnable carbon
Christophe McGlade is a research associate in energy materials modelling at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. He recently co-authored, with Paul Ekins, a paper called “The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2°C”, a paper whose stark call to leave the substantial majority of fossil fuels in the ground generated a lot of media coverage in recent weeks (see for example here and here). I started by asking him to give an overview of the paper and of its key findings:
“The paper is looking at the optimal use of fossil fuels if we want to have a good chance of staying below the agreed 2°C threshold. Within that, it breaks down the amount of oil, gas and coal reserves that are used and aren’t used at a regional level, so it points out or suggests the countries that would have to sacrifice a large proportion of their fossil fuel reserves if we want to have a good chance of 2°. The headline findings on a global level are that around 80% of coal reserves, 50% of gas and one third of oil reserves need to remain unburnt if we are to have this chance of 2°C.
How the Guardian graphically summarised the findings of Ekins and McGlade’s paper.
How has the paper been received since it came out?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
