UK has no good reason to approve tracking

摘要

It seems the new UK government under prime minister Theresa May is determined to "go all out" for tracking. Last week it approved four exploratory wells in Lancashire, overriding a local decision against drilling because of the noise and traffic it would create. Ifs a bad idea for many reasons. For starters, we already have more fossil fuel than we can afford to burn. If we are serious about tackling climate change, we have to leave most reserves underground. A recent study concluded that even if we stopped burning coal right now, there is enough oil and gas in currently exploited reserves to take the world past 1.5℃ of warming - the aspirational limit set by the Paris climate agreement, which comes into force in November. That's just the reserves we are already tapping, not those discovered but not yet exploited.