As OPEC ministers agreed to increase oil production again last week, a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change this month, shows that plunging renewable energy prices and rapidly increasing investment in low-carbon technologies could leave fossil fuel companies with trillions in stranded assets amid slumping market prices:
Several major economies rely heavily on fossil fuel production and exports, yet current low carbon technology, energy efficiency and climate policy may be substantially reducing global demand for fossil fuels.
This trend is inconsistent with observed investment in new fossil fuel ventures which could become stranded as a result…
Our analysis suggests that…would occur as a result of an already ongoing technological trajectory irrespective of whether or not new climate policies are adopted and there are clear distributional impacts, with winners (example, net importers such as China or the EU) and losers (for example, Russia, the United States or Canada, which could see their fossil fuel industries nearly shut down), although the two effects would largely offset each other at the level of aggregate global GDP.
Also see ‘Carbon bubble’ could spark global financial crisis, study warns:
“Contrary to investor expectations, the stranding of fossil fuel assets may happen even without new climate policies. Individual nations cannot avoid the situation by ignoring the Paris agreement or burying their heads in coal and tar sands.”
Mr Trudeau, please read this before you bail out anymore oil cos by buying antiquated pipelines off of them with scarce tax dollars.
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