These 20 Firms Produce A Third of The Entire World’s Emissions

By Sushmita Roy

Just 20 of the oil, gas and coal reserves around the world directly contribute to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era, according to the report. As Friday strikes become more common and the younger generation gets more vocal, governments are increasingly pressured to address the fossil fuel industry's contribution to global warming.

The report, by Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in the US, a pioneer in exploring the role of big oil companies in the growing climate crisis, examined what the global giants have extracted from the ground, and the subsequent emissions produced since 1965 — the year that experts suggest the environmental impact of fossil fuel became more clear and available.

The list includes state-owned companies like Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, Gazprom in Russia, National Iranian Oil Co and Coal India. Investor owned companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil in the USA, BP in UK and Shell in The Netherlands are leading contributors too.

World Peace Association graphic | Source: Richard Heede, Climate Accountability Institute. Note: table includes emissions for the period 1965 to 2017 only.

“In my view, fossil fuel firms were morally and legally obliged to warn that continued use of carbon fuels threatens our health and welfare, and to accelerate the conversation on how to reduce the threat. Instead the industry has for decades invested millions in climate denial and obfuscation in order to delay legislative action and avoid losing market share,” Heede wrote for Guardian’s opinion section.

According to Heede, the companies have benefited from tax cuts, subsidies worth hundreds of billions of dollars provided by the government, and military protection for shipping lanes, providing incentives for fossil fuel development.

“Overall, companies are the beneficiaries of what climate economist Nicholas Stern has called the ‘greatest market failure the world has seen,” Heede wrote.

Carbon dioxide levels are at a record high compared to pre-industrial levels but the Trump administration is constantly pushing to help the industry thrive— opting out of the Paris climate accord, opening new tracts of public land for frisking and mining and repelling Obama-era environmental laws.

According to the Guardian, Industry giants like Robert Murray, a coal magnate and Texas lobbyist Jeff Miller, who has several big fossil fuel clients, are organizing fund-raisers and raising millions of dollars for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, seeking to benefit from more deregulation in the fossil fuel industry.

The top 20 companies listed on the report contributed to 35% of all energy-related carbon dioxide and methane worldwide, totaling 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) since 1965.

“The great tragedy of the climate crisis is that seven and a half billion people must pay the price – in the form of a degraded planet – so that a couple of dozen polluting interests can continue to make record profits. It is a great moral failing of our political system that we have allowed this to happen, ” Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, told the Guardian.

Mann urged politicians to take urgent measures and take responsibility for their activities at the forthcoming climate talks in Chile in December.

Unlike two decades ago, oil companies are now increasingly admitting to the link between oil production and climate change. But caught between whether to focus on increasing profits or invest in greener energy, most chose to remain silent when Guardian reached out for comments. Others said they were not directly responsible for how the oil, gas or coal they extracted were used by consumers.

According to Heede, the solution lies with the government: “We need to eliminate subsidies and regulatory preferences, and to price carbon so as to ‘internalise’ the vast costs of climate damages now mostly paid by people who did not cause the problem, such as today’s farmers and tomorrow’s children.”