A group of activists, environmentalists, and lawyers have come together to identify and ‘defuse carbon bombs’ 

‘Carbon Bombs’ are coal, oil, and gas projects that have the potential to contribute significantly to global warming. Around 195 such projects have been identified globally, including in the United States, Russia, West Asia, Australia, and India. According to the report, they will collectively exceed the emissions limit agreed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The network working to ‘defuse’ carbon bombs is known as the Leave It In the Ground Initiative (LINGO). The organization’s mission is to “leave fossil fuels in the ground and learn to live without them.”

It believes that the burning of fossil fuels is at the root of climate change and that the solution is to use only renewable energy sources. When coal, oil, or gas are extracted, pollution and environmental degradation occur. Furthermore, when fuel is burned, massive amounts of carbon dioxide are released.

Aside from coal, oil, and gas operations, the report emphasized the danger of methane, which “routinely leaks from gas operations and is a powerful greenhouse gas, trapping 86 times more heat than CO2 over 20 years.”

LINGO aims to organize ground support for protesting such projects, challenge them through litigation, and conduct analysis and studies for the same.

The usage of the term ‘carbon bombs’ was picked up after an investigative project of The Guardian from May 2022. Defining the term in its report, The Guardian said that it is “an oil or gas project that will result in at least a billion tonnes of CO2 emissions over its lifetime.”