Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it?
J. Jewell, M. Vetier, V. Vinichenko, O.M. Lægreid, S. Pai, A. Cherp, H. Brauers, I. Braunger, L. Nacke, H. Zerriffi. (2022). Quitting fossil fuels: how fast can the world do it? Policy brief.
To meet climate targets, fossil fuel use needs to rapidly decline. Has anything similar happened in the past? Do current coal phase-out efforts put us on the path to save the climate? And how would such radical fossil fuel decline affect fossil fuel workers? To answer these questions, we analyzed historical precedents of fossil fuel decline, current efforts to phase-out coal and future pathways to reach climate targets.
We find surprising precedents of decline in the 1970s and 80s when industrialized wealthy economies responded to the oil crises. At the same time, the current pledges of coal phase-out are insufficient to deliver on the 1.5°C targets and are limited to countries with low costs and high enough capacity to overcome those costs. Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition from fossil fuel workers to transitions, we identify opportunities for low-carbon jobs to replace fossil fuel jobs.