Report: Current fossil fuel projects can derail Paris climate goals


A new study by Oil Change International and 14 other organizations, scientifically grounds the growing movement to keep carbon in the ground by revealing the need to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure and industry expansion. It’s accompanied by a letter to global leaders, to be delivered at the next round of UN climate negotiations.

 

The Sky’s Limit: Why the Paris Climate Goals Require a Managed Decline of Fossil Fuel Production

Priceofoil.org

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The Sky's Limit Cover

A new study released by Oil Change International, in partnership with 14 organizations from around the world, scientifically grounds the growing movement to keep carbon in the ground by revealing the need to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure and industry expansion. It focuses on the potential carbon emissions from developed reserves – where the wells are already drilled, the pits dug, and the pipelines, processing facilities, railways, and export terminals constructed.

Key Findings:

  • The potential carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in the world’s currently operating fields and mines would take us beyond 2°C of warming.
  • The reserves in currently operating oil and gas fields alone, even with no coal, would take the world beyond 1.5°C.
  • With the necessary decline in production over the coming decades to meet climate goals, clean energy can be scaled up at a corresponding pace, expanding the total number of energy jobs.


Key Recommendations:

  • No new fossil fuel extraction or transportation infrastructure should be built, and governments should grant no new permits for them.
  • Some fields and mines – primarily in rich countries – should be closed before fully exploiting their resources, and financial support should be provided for non-carbon development in poorer countries.
  • This does not mean stopping using all fossil fuels overnight. Governments and companies should conduct a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry and ensure a just transition for the workers and communities that depend on it.

 

Click here to download the report

SIGN LETTER
The Sky’s Limit: No new fossil fuel development.
An open letter to world leaders
“Analysis has now shown that the carbon embedded in existing fossil fuel production, if allowed to run its course, would take us beyond the globally agreed goals of limiting warming to well below 2˚C and pursuing efforts to limit to 1.5˚C. The global carbon budgets associated with either temperature limit will be exhausted with current fossil fuel projects, and in fact some currently-operating fossil fuel projects will need to be retired early in order to have appropriately high chances of staying below even the 2˚C limit, let alone 1.5˚C.

With this new understanding, the challenge has never been clearer. To live up to the goals set forth by the Paris Agreement and to safeguard our climate for this and future generations, fossil fuel production must enter a managed decline immediately, and renewable energy must be advanced to swiftly take its place in the context of a just transition.”

Oil Change International, in collaboration with 350.org, Amazon Watch, APMDD, AYCC, Bold Alliance, Christian Aid, Earthworks, Équiterre, Global Catholic Climate Movement, HOMEF, Indigenous Environmental Network, IndyAct, Rainforest Action Network, and Stand.earth

Click here to view/sign letter

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Going 100% renewable energy is possible and these countries prove it
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couple of years ago you would have thought it wasn’t possible, but today it has become a reality. Many countries are running at or near 100% renewable energy. In 2004, Costa Rica was at almost 47 percent renewable energy. Last year, however, the country ran completely on renewable energy – a combination of wind, solar, hydro and geothermal – for 75 days straight. According to the government, through all of 2015, the country ran on 99% renewable energy and only 1% fossil fuel… By 2021, it plans to be completely carbon neutral… But Costa Rica isn’t alone, here are the other countries that are at or close to being 100 percent renewable:

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