Obama: We Must Leave 70% of Fossil Fuels In the Ground

Thomas Friedman asked President Obama a pointed question: “If you take the UN’s climate study it basically says that if we go beyond 2 degree centigrade in global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, we’re going to cross into some really dangerous, unstable territory; Arctic melting, massive sea level rise, disruptive storms. The International Energy Agency says in order to stay under that two degree rise we’re really going to have to keep most of the oil and gas and coal — 70 percent is a rough number they use — in the ground. Do you agree with that?” Obama's answer was to the point: “Science is science,” he said. “And there is no doubt that if we burned all the fossil fuel that’s in the ground right now that the planet’s going to get too hot and the consequences could be dire.” He went on to add: We're not going to be able to burn it all. Over the course of the next several decades, we're going to have to build a ramp from how we currently use energy to where we need to use energy. And we're not going to suddenly turn off a switch and suddenly we're no longer using fossil fuels, but we have to use this time wisely, so that you have a tapering off of fossil fuels replaced by clean energy sources that are not releasing carbon. But I very much believe in keeping that 2° Celsius target as a goal. It's time to put a stake through the heart of the fossil fuel industry. That's the only way they're going to surrender.

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