Big numbers for bold activists: A quick method for estimating potential emissions of fossil fuel projects

Due to the failure of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions with demand-side measures alone, in recent years supply-side approaches to climate change mitigation have garnered increasing attention. But so far there are few established ways to quantify the impacts of supply-side mitigation strategies. In order for supply-side mitigation to be perceived as an effective means to climate ends, activists and decision-makers alike need to show its impact in comparison with demand-side measures. While emissions accounting is a prolific field with many precise - and complicated - methods, we lack straightforward methods that are readily understood by more than a small group of subject experts. In order to make the conversation about carbon kept in the ground accessible to a wider audience, I propose quantification methods for the emissions impacts of stopping fossil fuel projects. The nature of the fossil fuel supply chain requires distinguishing three different kinds of interventions and the methods I propose result in a baseline estimate of the potential emissions impacts for each of them using widely available fossil fuel reserve figures and nameplate capacity figures of fossil fuel projects. I explain these methods in detail, discussing conceptual issues and including some caveats to their application and apply them to real-life cases. I point to how the estimates generated with these methods can be used as a basis for gauging the impact of the Keep it in the ground movement, as well as an input for performing more sophisticated analyses.