Meeting Two Degree Climate Target Means 80 Per Cent of World's Coal Is "Unburnable", Study Says

More than 80 per cent of the world's known coal reserves need to stay in the ground to avoid dangerous climate change, according to new research.  Thirty per cent of known oil and 50 per cent of gas reserves are unburnable and drilling in the Arctic is out of the question if we're to stay below two degrees, the new research notes.

That vast amounts of fossil fuels must go unused if we're to keep warming in check isn't a new idea.  What's novel about today's paper is that it pinpoints how much fuel is unburnable in specific regions of the world, from Canadian tar sands to the oil-rich Middle East.

Unburnable carbon

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated how much carbon we can emit and still keep a decent chance of limiting warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels.  This is known as a carbon budget. Two degrees is the internationally-accepted point beyond which climate change risks become unacceptably high.

As of 2010, we could release a maximum of about  1000 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide and still have a 50:50 chance of staying below two degrees, according to the  IPCC.

Today's paper compares this allowable carbon budget with scientists' best estimate of how much oil, gas and coal exist worldwide in economically recoverable form, known as "reserves".

Were we to burn all the world's known oil, gas and coal reserves, the greenhouse gases released would blow the budget for two degrees three times over, the paper finds.

Read more at Meeting Two Degree Climate Target Means 80 Per Cent of World's Coal Is "Unburnable", Study Says