Fossil watch

Time is running out...

What’s more, the [fossil fuel] industry sits on a mountain of debt that can never be repaid, will never be repaid, and it’s poised between two bad pricing decisions — keep prices low, which will accelerate the industry bankruptcies caused by those debts (which will also bankrupt some banks); or raise prices higher, making the fossil fuel industry’s debt service more sustainable in the short term while driving an even faster transition to renewables in the long term.

So what is the endgame for those who are heavily invested in the fossil fuels biz? Hope and work for higher prices now and fill your boots while you can, or try to keep prices low and hope it buys you more time by reducing the incentive to develop and improve the altenatives?

I have no idea, although I'd guess that any fossil fuel interests based here in the UK would prefer the short-term "grab what you can and to hell with tomorrow" approach so typical of the British way of doing things. This mindset has been disastrous in the past - the UK treated North Sea oil as a one-off bonanza, rather than thinking of the future and sensibly diverting some of the profits from this finite resource into a sovereign wealth fund like Norway, or Saudi Arabia.

If I'm right, and UK fossil fuel interests get what they wish for, it would mean more pain and fuel poverty in the short term, although maybe a brighter future further down the line, as alternatives get taken up more quickly than they otherwise would have been.