Thank you to all who attended the 2025 conference, Climate Change and Fossil Fuels: New Narratives. The conference asked: What is the role of big investors in leaving fossil fuels underground (LFFU)? What are the North-South implications of LFFU? And what measures can be taken, and by whom, to equitably allocate and accelerate shareholder and stakeholder responsibility in energy transformation for inclusive development? We have the following five key messages.
1. Phase out fossil fuels now
Unless the global economy drastically decarbonises, the carbon budget to have a 50% chance of achieving the 1.5°C objective will be depleted by 2028. Plans to overshoot the target and offset emissions later must be minimised to avoid causing further significant harm to societies and ecosystems (noting that warming at and beyond 1°C already causes significant harm). Since the burning of fossil fuels is the root cause of climate change, phasing them out is in the interests of the vast majority of people, as well as the non-human world. Until 202, fossil fuels were not mentioned in the international climate regime. Restricting fossil fuel supply must be a priority for international climate policy.
2. Without climate justice, LFFU is impossible
Climate change and fossil fuels are a justice issue. In the North-South context, historically responsible rich countries continue to invest in fossil fuel at home and abroad. The fossil interests that have benefited from fossil capital are intertwined with ongoing imperialist dynamics that lock the Global South into debt, which in turn fuels their reliance on fossil exports. Without a just approach that centres these structural asymmetries, and without enabling the Global South to phase out fossil fuel by making alternatives available and affordable for all, LFFU will be impossible. Within countries and regions, climate injustices also unfold across diverse sectors, groups, and contexts. Hence, local-to-global justice is a necessary condition of LFFU.
3. LFFU requires dismantling the power structures and incentives that drive fossil fuel expansion
A complex architecture of states, institutions, companies, and legal-economic arrangements facilitates and locks the global economy into fossil fuel extraction, production and use; LFFU necessarily implies broader structural change to address these drivers. Perverse subsidies for fossil fuels that prop up their profitability, the pervasive influence of fossil interests in shaping policy (there was one fossil lobbyist for every 25 participants at COP30), and international treaties that discourage proactive decarbonisation are just some of the factors perpetuating fossil hegemony. Without addressing these structural drivers, states, companies, and other fossil investors will continue to seek short-term profits at the expense of the fundamental conditions of life on the planet. Given these conflicting incentives and their record of denial, disinformation, and climate-delay tactics, relying on corporations and financial institutions to credibly drive climate action is a fairytale.
4. Catalysing action to LFFU is underway
Climate change cannot be addressed by symptomatic incremental measures; nor can it be addressed by market-based mechanisms that rely on the same logic driving fossil use and production. Fortunately, many different actors are challenging the fossil empire with various creative tactics. Civil society has taken fossil interests to court – and won – putting pressure on states and corporations. Global pressure is mounting: this year the advisory opinions of three relevant international courts reaffirmed the responsibility of states to meet their international climate obligations and defined fossil fuel expansion as a wrongful act under international law. Building multi-scalar alliances between the movements questioning the structural drivers of inequality and climate harm, such those for tax and debt justice, can catalyse action to LFFU.
5. Powerful narratives can support action to LFFU
Part of the success of fossil interests is tied to how they control the narrative on fossil fuels; they disseminate doomist accounts claiming that moving away from fossil fuels will inhibit economic growth, employment, and development. Countering both these narratives and their obstruction of climate action requires compelling alternatives. These cannot merely refute fossil disinformation tactics but must also articulate visions of a post-fossil future which speak to popular realities and challenges of the majority. We are inspired by how social movements have taken on this challenge and we join them in calling for a better world without fossil fuels. We can all play a role in this fight — it is time to leave fossil fuels underground!
Endorsed by
The CLIFF team
The CSDS team
Paula Haerle, University of Amsterdam
Luis Scungio, SOMO
Michele Betstill, University of Copenhagen
Federico Sibaja, Recourse
Nicholas King, Independent Environmental Futurist
David Emiliano
Guo Fei, University of Amsterdam
Ciprian Piraianu, University of Amsterdam
Enrico Macciotta
Ana Xambre Pereira
Valentina Couceiro
Tim van der Vooren, University of Amsterdam
Kirsten Dunlop, Climate KIC
Hebe Verrest, University of Amsterdam
Mirte Jepma, University of Amsterdam
Maien Sachisthal, University of Amsterdam
Jeska de Jong
Rhodante Ahlers, Environmental Services
Anna Aretha Sach, University of Amsterdam
Michel den Elzen, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Georgios Dikaios, University of Amsterdam
Jolanda Robinson, University of Amsterdam