As the price of oil falls below $50 a barrel, wiping billions of dollars off global inventories, will these investments continue to support fossil-fuel industries, or will they seek out value and growth in the renewables and clean-technology sectors?
There are 12,000 gigatonnes of hydrocarbons locked up in the earth’s crust. The cheap stuff, such as the oil from the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, has been found, and most of these fields have passed the peak of their output, although they will go on producing, at reducing levels, for many years.
