Interactive Atlas (IA) for Climate Change and Fossil Fuels (CLIFF) v1.0
CLIFF and CLIFF-IA
To halt climate change, the Paris Agreement implicitly requires leaving fossil fuels (FF) underground (LFFU) and coherent financial flows. This implies stranding huge amounts of FF resources and assets (worth $16-300 trillion), affecting big investors: FF firms, shareholders (pension funds/philanthropies), debt financers (aid agencies/development banks) and governments. The CLIFF (Climate Change and Fossil Fuels) research team at University of Amsterdam aims to answer the following research questions:
What is the role of big investors in LFFU? What are the North-South implications of LFFU? And what measures can be taken by whom to equitably allocate and accelerate shareholder and stakeholder responsibility in energy transformation for inclusive development?
CLIFF, 2022-2026
Alongside answering these research questions, CLIFF produces this CLIFF-IA (Interactive Atlas), in which we map across the world:
- Fossil fuel-related emissions,
- Fossil fuel resources/reserves
- Fossil fuel-related infrastructures
- Fossil fuel power plants
- Fossil fuel-related labour, investment, litigation, social movements, governance
- Renewables
- Fossil fuel-related stranded assets
Key messages from this interactive atlas:
- Climate change poses imminent and long-lasting threats to our Earth system, demanding immediate action;
- The Paris Agreement symbolises a united global commitment to address climate change;
- Past and present emissions have substantially depleted the carbon budget for the future, requiring rapid and decisive actions on phasing out fossil fuels;
- The heavy dependence on the fossil fuel industry worldwide poses serious challenges to phasing out fossil fuels and achieving the Paris Agreement;
- Future deployment of renewable energy installations must act as replacements for fossil fuel-based energy production but not additions, and in many countries the future planned renewable energy is barely enough to replace energy produced from burning coal, indicating the need for more substantial and faster deployment of renewables; and
- Global South will bear most of the risks of stranded assets, should they follow the business-as-usual development model.
To access the atals: CLIFF-IA
ERC advanced grant @UvA, PI: Prof. J. Gupta; CLIFF-IA: developed & maintained by Dr. Y. Chen