Eighty percent of global carbon dioxide emissions since the Paris Agreement can be linked to 57 fossil fuel and cement producers in the world where the top three emitters are actually state-owned companies, including Coal India Limited which is ranked third in the list, shows a new analysis by a London-based think tank InfluenceMap.
The other two top emitters during 2016-22 period are state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco and Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The Paris Agreement was unanimously adopted in December 2015, seeking countries take voluntary actions to cut down their emissions of climate damaging greenhouse gases.
The pledge, however, seemed to matter little to fossil fuel companies. The analysis using the Carbon Majors database, released on Thursday, reveals that most such companies produced more fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) in the seven years after the Paris Agreement than in the seven years before the Agreement’s adoption.
Carbon Majors is a database of historic production data from 122 of the world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers. Its analysis further shows that over 70% of global fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions since the industrial revolution can be traced to 78 corporate and state producing entities.
Over the same period (1854-2022), just 19 entities contributed 50% of these CO2 emissions. In this list, China Coal with 14% of historical global emission figured at the top while Coal India emerged at tenth spot with 1.5% of the global CO2 emissions. India’s ONGC figured at 46th rank with 0.3 per cent.
“The Carbon Majors database is a key tool in attributing responsibility for climate change to the fossil fuel producers with the most significant role in driving global CO2 emissions,” said Daan Van Acker, programme manager at InfluenceMap.
The analysis shows that the group of fossil fuel producers is, in fact, “not slowing down production”, with most entities increasing production after the Paris Agreement.
It further shows the top five investor-owned companies, Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and ConocoPhillips, are responsible for over 11% of historical fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions. In terms of coal, the supply since 2015 has shifted from investor-owned to state-owned entities.
