An article by Damian Carrington pointed me to a report from Lord Stern and Carbon Tracker, a non-profit organisation that is “working to align the capital markets with the climate change policy agenda”. This report has brought attention to a particular set of dimensions to the financial and economic risks of the world’s continuing consumption and dependence upon fossil fuels. The key concern is the likelihood of missing internationally agreed targets for emissions if even only existing reserves are consumed, let alone any further extension of, for instance, near-oil fuels like tar sands and shale oil. If these reserves are unburnable – which, from a climate change point of view, they are, then there is a substantial over-valuation of corporate assets (with attendant risk of the bubble bursting).
The Guardian has produced a neat interactive map showing the countries with the greatest exposure to the carbon bubble.
