Industrialised nations need to lead the world with an exit strategy for fossil fuels | Rainer Baake

Energy efficiency and renewables are indispensable weapons in the fight against climate change, but the real challenge is keeping fossil fuel reserves in the ground

At the UN climate conference in Paris in December 2015, 195 countries concluded a groundbreaking climate accord. They agreed to limit global warming to well below 2C to avoid extremely dangerous and irreversible climate change.

The international community's remaining emission "budget" is less than 1,000 gigatonnes of CO2. The Paris agreement is intended to ensure as quickly as possible that the annual global emissions go down, the budget is stretched, and the net emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced to zero over a few decades.