“Inevitably, the compromises of the Paris Agreement make it both a huge achievement and an imperfect solution to the problem of global climate change.”
“Virtually all new fossil fuel-burning power-generation capacity will end up “stranded”. This is the argument of a paper by academics at Oxford university. We have grown used to the idea that it will be impossible to burn a large portion of estimated reserves of fossil fuels if the likely rise in global mean temperatures is to be kept below 2C. But fuels are not the only assets that might be stranded. A similar logic can be applied to parts of the capital stock.”
“Misinterpreting signals to make them consistent with a pre-determined outcome is, psychologists tell us, a common phenomenon in human nature. Unfortunately, it is also a frequent dynamic in modern financial markets, particularly when it comes to sustainability.”
“What is the best way to get from A to B by public transit? Google Maps is answering such queries for over 20,000 cities and towns in over 70 countries around the world, including large metro areas like New York, São Paulo or Moscow, and some complete countries, such as Japan or Great Britain.”
“There is a cautionary tale buried in Earth’s past. Some 56 million years ago, about 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct, a massive amount of carbon surged into the atmosphere, triggering a rise in temperature of 5°C. Scientists often look to the so-called Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) as an analog for today’s rising temperatures, because the magnitude of that ancient carbon injection is thought to be comparable to what humans will release if fossil fuel emissions continue unabated for a few more centuries.”
