Equitable, effective, and feasible approaches for a prospective fossil fuel transition

Most fossil fuel resources must remain unused to comply with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Scholars and policymakers debate which approaches should be undertaken to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU). However, existing scholarship has not yet inventoried and evaluated the array of approaches to LFFU based on their effectiveness, equity, or feasibility. Hence, this review article asks: What lessons can we learn from reviewing scholarship on proposed approaches to leaving fossil fuels underground (LFFU)? We identify 28 unique LFFU approaches, of which only 12 are deemed environmentally effective (e.g., fossil fuel extraction taxes, bans and moratoria, and financial swaps); eight involve moderate-to-high (non-)monetary costs, and only four are deemed entirely just and equitable. Of the 12 environmentally effective approaches: only three were deemed cost-effective (regulating financial capital for fossil fuel projects, removing existing fossil fuel subsidies, and bans & moratoria); merely four were deemed equitable (asset write-offs, retiring existing fossil infrastructure, pursuing court cases/litigation, and financial swaps); and all were deemed institutionally problematic in terms of their feasibility (six were challenging to implement as they threatened the vested interests of powerful stakeholder groups). Moreover, the reviewed scholarship draws heavily on empirical studies of how these LFFU approaches can be optimized in European, North American, and Chinese contexts; fewer studies have explored the effectiveness and fairness of LFFU approaches in the South and/or in a North-South context. Future research should particularly focus on North-South fossil fuel financial flows, which have received comparatively little attention. This article is categorized under:The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Decarbonizing Energy and/or Reducing Demand.