At least two of the world’s largest coal companies and one major oil and gas concern are still deep in denial about the large proportion of their reserves that is unburnable, and about the likelihood that governments will get serious about regulating carbon emissions.
“The greatest problem we confront is not an environmental crisis predicted by flawed computer models, but a human crisis that is fully within our power to solve,” Peabody Energy Chairman and CEO Greg Boyce told a fossil fuel conference n Houston.
“Another coal giant, Glencore Xstrata, said on Tuesday that governments would fail to implement measures to cut carbon emissions,” The Guardian reports. Meanwhile, “oil and gas major ExxonMobil said new reserves in the Arctic and Canadian tar sands must be exploited, moves scientists deem incompatible with tackling global warming.”
Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, connected the news back to the growing momentum around stranded fossil fuel assets. “The problem is their headlong rush to disaster could drag many ordinary people’s pensions and investments over the edge with them,” he said. We can only hope that our political leaders can stand up to the lobbying muscle of fossil fuel companies and their short-sighted recklessness.”
