Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
Chevron’s Kern River oil field in Bakersfield,
California. Photograph: Guardian Design
New data
shows how fossil fuel companies have driven climate crisis despite industry
knowing dangers
The top 20
companies on the list have contributed to 35% of all energy-related carbon
dioxide and methane worldwide, totalling 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide
equivalent (GtCO2e) since 1965.
Those
identified range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron,
Exxon, BP and Shell – to state-owned companies including Saudi Aramco and
Gazprom
by Matthew
Taylor and Jonathan Watts
Wed 9 Oct
2019 12.00 BSTLast modified on Wed 9 Oct 2019 12.17 BST
The
Guardian today reveals the 20 fossil fuel companies whose relentless
exploitation of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves can be directly linked
to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era.
New data
from world-renowned researchers reveals how this cohort of state-owned and
multinational firms are driving the climate emergency that threatens the future
of humanity, and details how they have continued to expand their operations
despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet.
The
analysis, by Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in the US,
the world’s leading authority on big oil’s role in the escalating climate
emergency, evaluates what the global corporations have extracted from the
ground, and the subsequent emissions these fossil fuels are responsible for
since 1965 – the point at which experts say the environmental impact of fossil
fuels was known by both industry leaders and politicians.
The top 20
companies on the list have contributed to 35% of all energy-related carbon
dioxide and methane worldwide, totalling 480bn tonnes of carbon dioxide
equivalent (GtCO2e) since 1965.
Those
identified range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron,
Exxon, BP and Shell – to state-owned companies including Saudi Aramco and
Gazprom.
Chevron
topped the list of the eight investor-owned corporations, followed closely by
Exxon, BP and Shell. Together these four global businesses are behind more than
10% of the world’s carbon emissions since 1965.
Twelve of
the top 20 companies are state-owned and together their extractions are
responsible for 20% of total emissions in the same period. The leading
state-owned polluter is Saudi Aramco, which has produced 4.38% of the global
total on its own.
Michael
Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, said the findings shone a
light on the role of fossil fuel companies and called on politicians at the
forthcoming climate talks in Chile in December to take urgent measures to rein
in their activities.
“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.”
The global
polluters list uses company-reported annual production of oil, natural gas, and
coal and then calculates how much of the carbon and methane in the produced
fuels is emitted to the atmosphere throughout the supply chain, from extraction
to end use.
It found
that 90% of the emissions attributed to the top 20 climate culprits was from
use of their products, such as petrol, jet fuel, natural gas, and thermal coal.
One-tenth came from extracting, refining, and delivering the finished fuels.
The
Guardian approached the 20 companies named in the polluters list. Seven of them
replied. Some argued that they were not directly responsible for how the oil,
gas or coal they extracted were used by consumers. Several disputed claims that
the environmental impact of fossil fuels was known as far back as the late
1950s or that the industry collectively had worked to delay action.
Most
explicitly said they accepted the climate science and some claimed to support
the targets set out in the Paris agreement to reduce emissions and keep global
temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
All pointed
out efforts they were making to invest in renewable or low carbon energy
sources and said fossil fuel companies had an important role to play in
addressing the climate crisis. PetroChina said it was a separate company from
its predecessor, China National Petroleum, so had no influence over, or
responsibility for, its historical emissions. The companies’ replies can be
read in full here.
The latest
study builds on previous work by Heede and his team that has looked at the
historical role of fossil fuel companies in the escalating climate crisis.
The impact
of emissions from coal, oil and gas produced by fossil fuel companies has been
huge. According to research published in 2017 by Peter Frumhoff at the Union of
Concerned Scientists in the US and colleagues, CO2 and methane emissions from
the 90 biggest industrial carbon producers were responsible for almost half the
rise in global temperature and close to a third of the sea level rise between
1880 and 2010. The scientists said such work furthered the “consideration of
[companies’] historical responsibilities for climate change”.
Heede said:
“These companies and their products are substantially responsible for the
climate emergency, have collectively delayed national and global action for
decades, and can no longer hide behind the smokescreen that consumers are the
responsible parties.
“Oil, gas,
and coal executives derail progress and offer platitudes when their vast
capital, technical expertise, and moral obligation should enable rather than thwart
the shift to a low-carbon future.”
Heede said
1965 was chosen as the start point for this new data because recent research
had revealed that by that stage the environmental impact of fossil fuels was
known by industry leaders and politicians, particularly in the US.
In November
1965, the president, Lyndon Johnson, released a report authored by the
Environmental Pollution Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee,
which set out the likely impact of continued fossil fuel production on global
heating.
In the same
year, the president of the American Petroleum Institute told its annual
gathering: “One of the most important predictions of the [president’s report]
is that carbon dioxide is being added to the Earth’s atmosphere by the burning
of coal, oil and natural gas at such a rate by the year 2000 the heat balance
will be so modified as possibly to cause marked changes in climate beyond local
or even national efforts.”
Heede
added: “Leading companies and industry associations were aware of, or wilfully
ignored, the threat of climate change from continued use of their products
since the late 1950s.”
The
research aims to hold to account those companies most responsible for carbon
emissions, and shift public and political debate away from a focus just on
individual responsibility. It follows a warning from the UN in 2018 that the
world has just 12 years to avoid the worst consequences of runaway global
heating and restrict temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The study
shows that many of the worst offenders are investor-owned companies that are
household names around the world and spend billions of pounds on lobbying
governments and portraying themselves as environmentally responsible.
A study
earlier this year found that the largest five stock-market-listed oil and gas
companies spend nearly $200m each year lobbying to delay, control or block
policies to tackle climate change.
Heede said
the companies had a “significant moral, financial, and legal responsibility for
the climate crisis, and a commensurate burden to help address the problem”.
He added: “Even
though global consumers from individuals to corporations are the ultimate
emitters of carbon dioxide, the Climate Accountability Institute focuses its
work on the fossil fuel companies that, in our view, have their collective hand
on the throttle and the tiller determining the rate of carbon emissions and the
shift to non-carbon fuels.”
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