tirement home. For the energy industry—at
the heart of our economy for so long—tran-
sition periods have been particularly slow.
Fixed investments and established supply
lines mean that, in the past, converting from
wood to coal or coal to oil has played out over
40 or 50 years or more. Plenty of time for a
nice wind-down.
But the fossil fuel industry also faces a
decidedly novel business problem: It turns
out that its product is destroying the world.
Does that sound like hyperbole? This win-
ter, a team of economists at that radical out-
post known as JPMorgan Chase prepared a
report for high-end clients that eventually
leaked to the British press. It explained the
current science in great detail and con-
cluded: “We cannot rule out catastrophic
outcomes where human life as we know it
is threatened.” Quoting many groups from
the International Monetary Fund to the
UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, the report said policymakers haveno choice but to force the transition off coal, oil, and gas
because a business-as-usual climate policy “would likely
push the earth to a place that we haven’t seen for many
millions of years,” sweeping the planet past irrevocable
tipping points as the poles melt and oceans acidify. “It is
clear that the Earth is on an unsustainable trajectory,” it
said. “Something will have to change at some point if the
human race is going to survive.”
How the world deals with the fossil fuel industry’s54 FORTUNE APRIL 2020“SOMETHING WILLHAVE TO CHANGE ...IF THE HUMAN RACE ISGOING TO SURVIVE.”DAVID MACKIE AND JESSICA MURRAY, JPMORGAN CHASE
ECONOMISTS IN A FEBRUARY 2020 REPORT TITLED
“RISKY BUSINESS: CLIMATE AND THE MACROECONOMY”PRESSURE CAMPAIGN Activists from the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition near JPMorgan Chase’s New York headquarters in February.ESS.W.04.20.XMIT.indd 54 FINAL 3/10/2020 5:16:09 PM