The UK could suffer around 500,000 job losses and be forced to spend more than £600bn of taxpayer cash to rescue the financial services sector, unless it prepares for the value of fossil fuels to collapse as a result of climate crisis regulation and legislation.
That was the stark warning made in a recent report from a collective of climate activism groups known as the One for One campaign, which suggested that the energy transition could result in bigger financial repercussions than the 2008 credit crunch, which forced the UK Government to bail out the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group to the tune of around £450bn.
The research makes comparisons between the credit exposure to subprime mortgages in that crisis and the forecasted global credit exposure to carbon-intensive industries in the future, factoring in the current levels of capital held against fossil fuel exposures by banks, insurers and asset managers.
