For decades fossil fuels were seen as a safe bet – until one simple study by a team of fund managers in 2011

“I think it’s a bollocks subject. I’m not interested in this kind of subject. I think this is complete hot air.”

This was the fruity view of an oil and gas trader in 2011, when asked to comment by the FTon a study suggesting fossil fuel reserves could become stranded assets due to new climate laws.

Not so long ago the idea oil, gas and coal companies could be wildly overvalued and at risk from future greenhouse gas cutting regulations was greeted with scorn.

Roll on four years and the ‘Unburnable Carbon’ report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative – a group of ex-fund managers, oil analysts and lawyers – has big oil running scared.

These scions of capitalism were even embraced by anti-capitalist protestors, who carried a giant inflatable silver and black ball representing the ‘carbon bubble’ of assets that cannot be used through the streets of New York ahead of the 2014 UN climate summit.

The bubble eventually burst in Wall Street, on the horns of the Merrill Lynch bull.

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