History of the Idea

The idea that we must leave fossil fuels in the ground has entered the mainstream and is about to be taken up seriously in politics. Some steps on the way have been:

1989:

• Energy policy in the greenhouse: from warming fate to warming limit by Krause et al. spells out the key issues of climate change and fossil fuels, including a fossil carbon budget.

1996:

• Oilwatch proposes a moratorium on new oil activities as a response to climate change.

1997:

• Greenpeace’s Bill Hare publishes the report The Carbon Logic.
• In the parallel sessions to the negotiations of the Kyoto Protocol, a global moratorium is put forward by Oilwatch.

2001:

• Michael Grubb points to the fact that an important front in the battle against climate change are non-conventional fossil fuels in “Who’s afraid of atmospheric stabilisation? Making the link between energy resources and climate change.“.

2007:

• Instead of exploiting the oil in one of the most biodiverse corners of the planet, in the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, the Ecuadorian government asks the international community for financial help amounting to half of the expected income from the oil, to be used for changing the course of the Ecuadorian economy to post-carbon.
• George Monbiot points out the simple truth in a Guardian article called “Leave It In The Ground“.
• Oilwatch proposes this as a policy alternative to extraction in a report called “KEEP OIL UNDERGROUND – the only way to fight climate change“.

2008:

• The Kyoto2 proposal for a global climate regime addresses the issue right where it comes out of the ground in a very elegant way.
• Another proposal for a global regime, the Earth Atmospheric Trust is put forward.

2009:

• Malte Meinshausen et al. chart a global carbon budget for a temperature target against proven fossil fuel reserves for the first time in their Nature article “Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2°C“. (see also their press release)

2010:

• Youth at COP16 in Cancun compare the proven fossil fuel reserves to the available carbon budget for a 1.5° and 2° pathway and distribute a leaflet saying that completely decarbonizing the world economy and leaving fossil fuels in the ground are “the real issues” that should be tackled at the UN climate talks. Some of them go on to start the highly successful Generation Zero campaign in New Zealand.

2011:

• The first Day of Action to End Extraction is held globally.
• Carbon Tracker’s first “Carbon Bubble” report looks at the financial aspect of private companies owning rights to exploit “unburnable” carbon that exceeds the global 2° carbon budget.
• Yoshi Nishimura and Akinobu Yasumoto publish a proposal of a global “upstream” carbon market, which would lead to all other fossil fuels being left in the ground.
• James Elworthy proposes a framework for a managed fossil fuel decline in The Energy Commons.
• LINGO starts in Durban during COP17 as Leave it in the Ground Coalition.

2012:

• Beyond Zero Emissions’ “Laggard to Leader” report calls for a pragmatic focus on “cooperative decarbonization” in the absence of an operational global climate agreement and proposes for Australia to implement a moratorium on new fossil projects and tip the economic balance for renewables in India and China.
• James Hansen writes it would be “Game Over for the Climate” if Canada were to exploit all of its tar sands.
• 350.org starts its “Do the Math” campaign.
• The Peoples’ Sustainability Treaty On Transitioning to a Zero Fossil Fuels World is generated as a civil society contribution to the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development and outlines pathways for initiating the transition to a post-carbon civilization.
• The Greenpeace report “Point of No Return” lists the biggest projects that aim at increasing fossil fuel extraction around the world.
• Nnimmo Bassey, Bill McKibben and Pablo Solón send a joint letter to COP18, calling for leaving two thirds of fossil fuel reserves in the ground.

2013:

• EJOLT and Oilwatch publish the report “Towards a Post-Oil Civilization” (12.6 MB) where they propose a Global Moratorium on Exploration and Exploitation in all Indigenous Territories and all Protected Areas (see their press release).
• The book The Burning Question addresses the issue in depth.

2014:

• The Margarita Declaration on Climate Change calls for 80% of fossil reserves to stay in the ground and put a complete end to dirty energy.
• The IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report mentions that we have 4 to 7 times more fossil fuel reserves than we can burn.

2015:

• An article in Nature spells out how much of different fossil fuel reserves would stay in the ground for a 2° target, based on economic considerations.
• The Guardian newspaper initiates its “Keep it in the Ground” campaign.
• The Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change calls on well-off and oil-producing nations to leave two thirds of fossil fuels in the ground and phase out carbon emissions before mid-century.
• Kiribati’s President Anote Tong calls on other leaders to establish a moratorium on new coal mines and coal mine extensions.
• The Suva Declaration by Pacific Island leaders calls on governments to initiate a dialogue on a moratorium on fossil industry development, especially coal mines.
• The proposal of a Keep it in the Ground Act is introduced in the United States to put fossil reserves under federal lands and waters off limits for extraction.
• Mulvaney et al. quantify The Potential Greenhouse Gas Emissions of U.S. Federal Fossil Fuels at 492 Gt CO2e, 450 Gt of which still unleased.
• Oilwatch proposes the formation of an Annex Zero to the UNFCCC that recognizes efforts to prevent the extraction of fossil fuels.
• Over 1000 groups call for a Global Ban on Fracking.
• The Paris Agreement sets a date for “net zero” emissions in the second half of the century. Even though the agreement makes no mention of fossil fuels, many interpret this as an effective deadline for fossil fuels.

2016:

• A number of civil society groups propose a Climate Test for new fossil fuel infrastructure.
• The Stockholm Environment Institute organizes an international conference on supply-side mitigation.
• Oil Change International’s report “The Sky’s Limit” shows that existing coal mines and oil and gas fields can take us past the carbon budget after the Paris Agreement.

2017:

• The Lofoten Declaration by NGOs calls for an end to new fossil fuel extraction and exploration and a managed decline of the industry.

2019:

• Peter Newell Andrew Simms propose a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.
• UNEP and partners publish the first Production Gap Report, listing national extraction reduction policies and calculating the gap between fossil fuel extraction plans and the Paris temperature targets.

2020:

• Johnny West proposes to compensate indebted countries for keeping fossil fuels in the ground for a 10-year period through an innovative mechanism modeling oil industry procedures.

2021:

• Greenland bans oil exploration for climate reasons.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says there should be no new fossil fuel projects.
• Costa Rica and Denmark create the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.