The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) is the generally considered the best source on climate change science. They have a nice graph of how things can

The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) is the generally considered the best source on climate change science. They have a nice graph of how things can go based on various amounts of sequestered carbon being injected into the carbon cycle. Graph: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/SPM.05-01-1.png https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/SPM.05-01-1.... Report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/ It basically shows that if you assume we keep pulling carbon out of the ground (e.g. extracting and burning fossil fuels) we'll end up at +4.5C increase. That kind of change is likely an human extinction-level event (e.g. https://xkcd.com/1379/ https://xkcd.com/1379/). The Paris agreements call for a max of +2C, which means we can only pull up about 25% of proven fossil reserves. So we're going to have to leave 75% of proven fossil reserves in the ground. There's actually a term for this called the "Carbon Bubble", and it's expected to decimate the oil majors and sovereign oil and gas since most of their proven reserves on their balance sheets are going to end up being stranded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_bubble