Why Shrinking Systems Matter

If the world takes its climate targets seriously, the coming decades will see fossil fuel systems shrinking as clean energy systems grow. In this episode, I talk with associate professor Emily Grubert about the issues that may arise during this “mid-transition” period. She has fascinating new study on the physical and financial cliffs that fossil fuel systems may go over as they decline and reach their “minimum viable scale” — and argues that public ownership of these dying industries might be the only way to gracefully phase them out.

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