Fewer than 60 companies are responsible for 80% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions since 2016, researchers have found. Worse still, those companies have increased, not decreased, their CO2 output since the 2016 Paris climate accord.
The list of shame
The Carbon Majors is a database of historic production data from 122 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal and cement producers, originally released in 2013 by Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI). This year’s report names the USA’s ExxonMobil as the worst investor-owned culprit, putting out 3.6 gigatonnes of CO2 since 2016, or 1.4% of the global total. Other leading drivers of the climate crisis according to the report, are Shell, BP, Chevron and TotalEnergies, who must shoulder responsibility for at least 1% of global emissions, each.
Despite the Paris Agreement’s collection of government promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions, the database uncovers a pattern of increased fossil fuel consumption and increased emissions when compared to the seven years preceding the Paris agreement. Among 122 of the world’s worst climate polluters over time, the analysis found that 65% of state held interests and 55% of private companies were in fact guilty of greater CO2 output than before 2016. The worsening of state and state-owned companies’ emissions is particularly notable in the Asian coal sector.
Multiple threats even at 1.5°C
This scaling up of emissions flies directly in the face of warnings from the International Energy Agency that, if the world is to stay with the agreed global heating limit, no new oil and gas fields can be exploited. The lower warming limit of 1.5° Celsius more than pre-industrial figure has already been exeeded over the past year and, even at that level of warming, threats include just 10% to 30% of the world’s coral reef systems remaining in good health, widespread drought and rising sea levels.
“It is morally reprehensible for companies to continue expanding exploration and production of carbon fuels in the face of knowledge now for decades that their products are harmful,” said Heede. “Don’t blame consumers who have been forced to be reliant on oil and gas due to government capture by oil and gas companies.”
Governments around the world are seeking ways to make emitters pay for environmental damage, through taxation and even direct pay schemes such as the US’s suggested climate superfund.
“Taxpayers alone can’t bear these costs,” Anthony Iarrapino, a lobbyist who supports the Conservation Law Foundation, told the New York Times. “It’s only fair to look to these immensely profitable corporations whose products and activities are the root causes of the crisis we are in and say, ‘You should pay your fair share and help clean up the mess.’”
