Join the Cutting-Edge Research

We are continuously looking to study LFFU from innovative and creative angles. Here are some of the research questions we are posing at the moment; if any sound interesting to you (or you think of any others), reach out to us with the form below!

1. How can multinational fossil fuel firms from industrialized countries (ICs), emerging economies and/or low-middle income countries (LMICs) creatively and innovatively take action to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU)?

2. How can renewable energy firms from industrialized countries (ICs), emerging economies and/or low-middle income countries (LMICs) creatively and innovatively take action to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU)?

3. How can insurance companies from industrialized countries (ICs), emerging economies and/or low-middle income countries (LMICs) creatively and innovatively take action to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU)?

4. How can banks from industrialized countries (ICs), emerging economies and/or low- middle income countries (LMICs) creatively and innovatively take action to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU)?

5. How can aid agencies and export credit agencies (ECAs) creatively and innovatively take action to Leave Fossil Fuels Underground (LFFU)?

6. How can governments discourage trade and investment in fossil fuel?

7. How are courts dealing with climate change and especially with issues related to leaving fossil fuels underground?

8. How are social movements addressing the challenge of leaving fossil fuels underground?

9. What role can philanthropy play in leaving fossil fuel underground?

10. What conflicts emerge – e.g. in addressing the Paris Climate Agreement – between approaches known as Climate Justice (with localised strengths and, e.g., hostility to Paris) and Climate Action (which e.g., in advancing international negotiations is amenable to policy advocacy compromise)?

11. What can be done to label fossil fuels ‘unburnable carbon’ and ‘stranded assets’ in public consciousness, local and national legislation, corporate governance (e.g. accounting standards and financing criteria), and global agreements?

12. Does the potential future use of hydrocarbons (in pharmaceutical products, synthetic materials, minimally-necessary plastics and other technologies) justify leaving fossil fuels underground, especially if instead of fossil fuels’ use in climate-catastrophic combustion today, there will be more ecologically-sensitive extraction options in future?

13. How might ‘rights of future generations’ to utilisation of natural resources feature in LFFU advocacy?

14. How does ‘climate debt’ provide potential leveraging resources to permit poor countries’ governments to instead leave fossil fuels underground (as in Ecuador’s Yasuni case)?

15. How can depletion of natural wealth – in any non-renewable resource extraction, but especially fossil fuels – be counted when recalculating GDP or doing economic cost-benefit analyses of fossil fuel extraction, to recalibrate decision-making processes such as Environmental Impact Assessments?