Fossil fuel-producing companies have been thrown onto the defensive over the last two years by the argument that many of their reserves will be “stranded” as the world transitions to cleaner forms of energy. Climate campaigners claim a large percentage of already known oil, gas and coal reserves must remain unburned if the rise in global temperatures is to remain below two degrees Celsius. The two-degree target has been endorsed by government leaders from around the world and was made even more ambitious at the climate summit in Paris in 2015. The Paris agreement commits the signatories to holding the rise in average global temperatures “well below 2 degrees C” and “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C”. But the problem with the […]