Around fifteen years ago, a new term entered the climate change lexicon: stranded assets. The concept was straightforward enough. If global warming is to be kept from getting out of hand, there is a limit to the amount of greenhouse gases that can be emitted into the atmosphere. Yet the fossil fuel reserves currently held by the world’s energy and mining companies would, if extracted and burned, emit far more than this amount.
The problem is carbon dioxide: CO2 accounts for roughly three-quarters of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, and the combustion of fossil fuels in turn accounts for roughly three-quarters of CO2 emissions. Either we exploit our fossil fuel reserves and the planet burns, or we don’t and some of the reserves are left in economic limbo. These unexploited reserves are known as stranded assets.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n02/brett-christophers/so-much-for-paris