Fortune - USA (2020-04)

T

HE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY faces a

classic business problem: Someone else

has come up with a better technology.

Over the past decade, engineering ad-

vances have helped drive down the price

of solar panels and wind turbines by some 90%. Clean

energy is now the cheapest way to generate power in

most of the world. And today, storage batteries are on the

same plummeting price curve—so that, increasingly, the

sun’s habit of going down at night is no big deal. Even the

car, which has helped define our culture and consumes

vast quantities of fossil fuel, is changing fast. No honest

person who has driven a Tesla will dispute that it’s a su-

perior machine: fast, with few moving parts, and a quiet

elegance that makes a rumbling muscle car seem more

than a little old-fashioned.

Faced with that kind of challenge, incumbent industries

usually play for time, trying to eke out another decade or

two of profits before wandering off to a well-appointed re-

ILLUSTRATION BY DELCAN & CO.

A PLANET IN CRCISLIMISA : CTEO CMHMAENNGTEARY

Banks, asset managers, and insurance

companies around the world are waking

up to the challenge of global warming.

Here’s how they can drive change—and

why they need to move much faster.

BY BILL MCKIBBEN

PUTTING

THE MONEY

SQUEEZ E

ON FOSSIL

FUELS

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