Now, this article implies that we need to leave some coal and oil in the groud, even if it's economic to mine and use it up. My main concern is I don't think that markets can handle this task. Markets are great at exploiting all available resources; but how do you constrain them not to do that? You cannot set any price on a resource that you do not want to use at all. In a way though, yes, it's about externalities.
Now, this article implies that we need to leave some coal and oil in the groud, even if it's economic to mine and use it up. My main concern is I don't think that markets can handle this task. Markets are great at exploiting all available resources; but how do you constrain them not to do that? You cannot set any price on a resource that you do not want to use at all. In a way though, yes, it's about externalities.