Climate scientists have calculated that if the planet is to have some chance at recovering, we will have to leave at least 80% of existing fossil fuel deposits in the ground forever. These deposits are booked as assets on the financial statements of energy companies across the globe. The value of these assets will become zero if humanity moves toward climate sanity. This will have major consequences for markets and investors.
Back in April, a very good piece on this was published on DKos:
Carbon Bubble will plunge the world into another financial crisis says report
More recently, it looks like major investors are starting to ask the same questions. In my online roamings today, I came across the following from Inside Climate News:
Wall Street Demands Answers From Fossil Fuel Producers on 'Unburnable' Carbon
If this is accurate, this could represent very good news on the climate change front. If Wall Street investors are recognizing strictly from a financial viewpoint that carbon curbs of various kinds are necessary and inevitable, and intend to disinvest in overvalued dinosaur energy companies, this may signal that the tipping point in the fight against carbon fuels may be much closer.
I'm not trying to be overly optimistic here. Big Oil and Big Coal will do everything in their power to demonstrate their share value by squelching any carbon emission limits by any means necessary. The "consensus of the markets" may still leave too much fossil fuels open to be burned.
But the upshot of this is that at least some investors right now (and possibly more later) are (considering) betting that the Global Warming Industry (a.k.a the fossil fuel industry) will lose the political battle to keep carbon in the ground.
We should not underestimate the importance of the political fight to curb carbon emissions at his time, however powerful the oil companies seem to be.
I am putting this up because I don't see anyone else on DKos picking up on this right now. I'm sure some other Kossack who has done more research on climate change in the news could improve on this piece, and I look forward to valuable additional information contributed in the comments.