The Energy Mix published an article on a new research paper co-authored by Stuart Jenkins, Margriet Kuijper, Hugh Helferty, Cécile Girardin, and Myles Allen, models the application of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) to fossil fuels. Published in Environmental Research Letters, the paper concludes that compelling fossil fuel producers to pay for carbon cleanup could end these fuels’ contribution to global warming without pitting climate action against meeting society’s energy needs—at a relatively affordable cost.

From the article:

“The simple expression of it is that if you take carbon out of the ground when there’s too much in the atmosphere, you don’t want to make things worse. So if you take it out, you should be responsible for permanent storage of an equivalent amount,” said study co-author Hugh Helferty, a former corporate strategic research manager at ExxonMobil now serving as co-founder and president of Houston-based Producer Accountability for Carbon Emissions.

“Companies have substantial capability to help solve the problem and can be a big part of the solution,” Helferty told The Energy Mix. “What they need is the incentive to do it.”

The full article can be accessed here.

To access the paper and learn more about the research, click here.