57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016
57 companies linked to 80% of greenhouse gas emissions since 2016
A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study
- Only 57 fossil fuels and cement producers have been responsible for most of the world's CO2 emissions since 2016, according to the Carbon Majors report by InfluenceMap
- Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, and Coal India were the top three CO2-emitting companies during this period.
- InfluenceMap's database aims to increase transparency around climate change contributors for legal, academic, campaign, and investor purposes.
This just in: few companies supply energy to our planet.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. These are massive conglomerates that will keep pumping as long as the demand exists
63These are massive conglomerates that will keep demand high by attacking alternative energy sources, funding climate denial, and engaging in sanctioned corruption.
51And (artificially) lowering fossil fuel prices, if we tax the shit out of oil companies, people will start looking for alternatives.
13
Yeah - those headlines do more harm than good as people will just point fingers and think it's enough to shut those companies down in order to fix climate change...
As long as there's demand other companies will step in and then instead of those few you have 10-20 supplying the same amount of oil with nothing gained
11subsidy and investment on green energy are great ideas to cut the cycle. they could be doing that.
instead we subsidy and invest in fossil fuels instead...
4
55Tax them!
27Do taxes reduce emissions?
1In theory, making the commodity more expensive changes some decisions about how much to use
In theory, the vice tax goes toward mitigating the effects of the vice, or preventive efforts.
So, no. The tax isn’t enough to change behavior nor is the money raised enough to help prevent or mitigate, even if it were targeted to those efforts
The tax isn’t even nearly enough to cover road maintenance, although a little more should help
6They do if they are high enough.
3No but they make liberals feel good, which has the same effect.
-3
No no it’s regular people not putting plastic take-out containers in the recycling bin doing it!
24It's everyone. We're all responsible. These companies only produce this much because we're buying the shit. You're doing exactly what you claim theyre doing: blaming others so you don't have to take any responsibility for yourself.
1No, they are highly subsidized, have a cartel, and have access to legislators (if you think U.S. lobbying is bad, Gazprom is owned by an oligarch and Aramco is literally the royal family's business). The success of their business model (or failure if you look at it in reality) hinges on supression of information, supression of competition, price fixing, violence etc.
These companies only produce this much because that is what they need to do to get the profit they expect, and last year they decided to produce a little less because they wanted a little more profit. It has nothing to do with consumer choice because consumers for the most part don't have a choice.
Buy 2nd hand, go without, repair, repurpose, grow some food if you can.
3
They also knew about climate change in the 1970s and deliberately hid that information and spent massive amounts of money to attack anyone who tried to blow the whistle.
18Of course and what is it that they want you to do? Just cut your food intake, eat lab meat, lab milk, bugs, and live in a shoebox. When food production in the USA is 9% of all carbon emissions. And out of those 9%, less than 3.8% is meat. While the cruise ship industry is 3.3% of total, worldwide.
Meanwhile, our CEO's, their boards, and their extended families, and largest stockholders go on, out on yatchs, zipping around in private jets, go to massive, endless, exorbitant decadent private events and eat whatever they want, whenever they want, because... suck it, pleb.
14And then they go online asking you to reduce your carbon footprint. It's a joke
6Yes, rich people produce more emissions. We know this. If you live in the west and are regularly eating meat, you're one of those rich people producing more emissions unnecessarily. The fact that there are those richer than you producing more than you doesn't change the fact that you are one of them to the vast majority of the world.
This whole pointing up is just an attempt to deal with the cognitive dissonance of claiming to care about it, but at the same time not wanting to make any personal sacrifices when it comes to actually addressing the problem.
We all need to shift our behavior. Not just the ultra wealthy.
-1
All fine and good except those 57 companies encompass 80% of all fossil fuel business right?
I'm not saying it doesn't need to be fixed, but I am saying that it's misleading.
11I think the takeaway is that it's a lot easier to change the behavior of 57 companies than it is to change the behavior of billions of people and it's bullshit that individual action is the only proposed solution to climate change under capitalism.
Not just that, but individual action among a sea of intentional obfuscation, green washing, and while still pushing overconsumption.
12That's a nice dream. I hope it can come true, but those 57 companies also own 90% of the US Congress and probably a large swath of the governments in 2nd and third-world countries. The people that need to make them stop are almost literally on their payroll.
3Focusing on those 57 companies doesn't really address that issue though.
These companies sell fossil fuels. If they actually reduce those sales in any significant way we'd still have to figure out how to get all their customers switched to other fuel sources.
There's a huge demand for their product so when we go after one of them the others take their place and they're collectively too big to take on all at once.
The most successful strategy seems to be to make them obsolete. We've finally been getting to the point where many renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels. The other big motivator is fear of the control that oil producing nations might have. There's some element of individual action but it's more about government policies and market pressure. Take China or the EU, for example. They've been shifting heavily away from fossil fuels. Some of that is likely due to the increasing domestic and international concerns about pollution. They're also both net oil importers.
That may be boring stuff to most people but it really gets the attention of governments that don't want to be at the mercy of oil exporters. The kind of attention that gets meaningful laws passed.
2
Its even more misleading that you would count the fossil fuels used by other companies towards the producer. You can't decrease the emissions by doing anything about these companies (without collapsing the whole economy), you need to transition the consumers to different energy sources.
It is like saying the Water companies are responsible for 100% of water usage...
4I agree and the market is not offering an affordable, equally capable alternative to combustion engines. EVs are a larp for anyone who needs to do more than just commute to and from work. (e.g. long distance travel, towing, hauling)
This is the best idea I've seen for hauling. It's also basically open source.
0
Let's not forget about the US military which is the number 1 polluter in the world
6Most of the world's carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels, so, yes, it would be those fossil fuel producers who would be linked to those emissions. I suppose we could all come together and force those companies to shut down and cease operations immediately. Global greenhouse gas emissions would plummet, but the global economy would collapse and there would be mass starvation and death.
6So, lets start by building food sources as much removed from oil as possible.
Invest into low-energy housing.
Continue with green energy.
Stop building everything else.
Forget about economy, planned obsolence, and start discussing distribution of natural resources and investing into science.
6"Forget about the economy" is an impossible sell in every nation. Even command economies are obsessed with economic numbers, and not without reason. When the economy declines, so does people's quality of life.
1
They're the ones who have kept us from putting anything else in place though.
3I suppose we could all come together and force those companies to shut down
Force, how?
1Well, its very hard to rape the earth with an extra hole in your head. Or so I'm told; ive never actually tried myself.
7
Right?! These posts are so dumb. And yes, some people think we should force fossil fuels immediately off the map. But, ya know, mass starvation and death. You forgot war. Basically the worst parts of the Bible.
-1
China needs to move away from coal. This would be a huge change in global emissions.
5Why are they counting emissions at extraction and not consumption?
3If the companies leave the carbon they own in the ground then it won't get burnt.
1How are we supposed to know what the end user will use it for? They could be burning it or bathing in it.
1
But I better watch my use of straws!
1Probably more to do with consolidation than anything else.
0But it’s the straws and charging for plastic bags that’ll make a real impact.
-2There’s more than one type of pollution, and, likewise, more than one thing we can all do to help clean up our environment.
Since my city banned plastic bags and instituted a bag fee, everyone has switched to reusable bags. Gone are the days of plastic bags strewn about, gathered in gutters, stuck in trees in trees for years. Dystopian shit. I’m glad they’re gone. I have to use other things for scooping out the cat box, but I make do.
Every little bit helps, and the more that contribute, the bigger the impact.
32Fossil fuel use does not in and of itself release microplastics.
Plastic products does.
8