Short answers, pulled from the story.
A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon or hydrocarbon material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric animals, plants and microplanktons. The conversion from these organic materials to high-carbon fuel typically takes a geological process of millions of years, which is why fossil fuels are considered non-renewable resources.
The three main fossil fuels are coal, petroleum and natural gas. Aquatic phytoplankton and zooplankton form petroleum and natural gas through anaerobic decomposition, while terrestrial plants tend to form coal and methane, with many coal fields dating to the Carboniferous period.
In 2023, fossil fuels supplied 77% of the world's primary energy consumption and over 60% of its electricity supply. Over 70% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 was carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.
Global air pollution deaths from fossil fuels have been estimated at over 8 million people in 2018, nearly 1 in 5 deaths worldwide, at 10.2 million in 2019, and 5.13 million excess deaths from ambient air pollution in 2023. In the EU, coal causes 24.6 deaths per terawatt-hour and oil 18.4, compared with 0.02 for solar and 0.07 for nuclear energy.
The term "fossil fuel" first appears in the work of the German chemist Caspar Neumann, in an English translation dated 1759. The theory that fossil fuels formed from dead plants under heat and pressure was introduced by Andreas Libavius in his 1597 Alchemia and later by Mikhail Lomonosov by 1763.
Fossilflation is the term that describes the impact of fossil fuels on inflation. Mark Zandi of Moody's says fossil fuel prices have driven every big episode of inflation since World War II, and economists including Isabel Schnabel link dependence on fossil fuels to the 2021 to 2022 inflation spike, worsened by the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022.