Slashdot Mirror
Only 100 Companies Are Responsible For 71 Percent of Global Emissions, Says Study (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Just 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, according to a new report. The Carbon Majors Report (pdf) "pinpoints how a relatively small set of fossil fuel producers may hold the key to systemic change on carbon emissions," says Pedro Faria, technical director at environmental non-profit CDP, which published the report in collaboration with the Climate Accountability Institute. The report found that more than half of global industrial emissions since 1988 -- the year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established -- can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities. The scale of historical emissions associated with these fossil fuel producers is large enough to have contributed significantly to climate change, according to the report. ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Chevron are identified as among the highest emitting investor-owned companies since 1988. If fossil fuels continue to be extracted at the same rate over the next 28 years as they were between 1988 and 2017, says the report, global average temperatures would be on course to rise by 4C by the end of the century. This is likely to have catastrophic consequences including substantial species extinction and global food scarcity risks.
one single apartment in Silicon Valley.
The Carbon Majors Database was established in 2013 by Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI) to show how these emissions are linked to companies, or ‘Carbon Majors’. Now CDP works in collaboration with the CAI to maintain the Database and share its important data and insights with all stakeholders
I think it's more likely that almost everything is owned by 100 companies.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They use "linked to" in the very broadest sense. There are less than a hundred major fossil fuel producers in the world, so of course it's "linked" to them. It's not like they are burning it though. It's not like we can just change 100 companies and remove more than half the greenhouse emissions. That's like saying because 70% of the world's greenhouse emissions are produced by 20 countries that it means 70% of the world's greenhouse emissions are linked to only 20 people (the current heads of state for those countries).
This is a bullshit report with bullshit ideas and bullshit conclusion.
A company that provides you with fuel for your car does not actually produce the emissions, your car produces the emissions, you are the one driving it. You are the one eating the food that is produced due to oil companies supplying energy and chemicals, you are the one living in a building heated and lit by whatever energy source that allows you to survive.
Etc.etc.etc.
To say that some companies that allow you to live on this planet by providing you with everything you need to live are producing the waste that is actually the result of you existing and consuming all this stuff is propaganda and nothing more. It is aimed at stealing profits from companies that are actually largely responsible for you being alive in the first place.
You can't handle the truth.
The companies' managers and shareholders are responsible for their behavior, but we, the people who buy their stuff and elect the officials who could legislate some of their behavior, are still responsible for our behavior.
"small set of fossil fuel producers..."
Yeh, we know, we dig up hydro-carbons and turn it into CO2. How the f*ck does that help to list the oil coal and gas companies?
If any of them stopped tomorrow, another company would fill the demand, the names would be different but it would make no change.
The DEMAND for those hydrocarbons is the problem here.
I just priced solar+storage for my house, why the f*ck am I paying for electricity? I never priced it until I read Slashdot the other day and decided to check the prices and specs for myself. The misleading marketing and political funding these companies do is the problem from these companies, not the hydrocarbons themselves.
Corporate entities counting is disingenuous. Pollution is not just produced, it is the byproduct of some job. Presumably there 100 companies produce over 70% of the work we use. They supply the gas we use to get to work, raise the cattle we eat, or produce our electricity. Who cares how they want to group themselves, that is the realm of accountants and lawyers.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
That number will be up from 71% to over 80% emitted by the top 100.
The number of corporate entities doing the emission is irrelevant, the total emission is what matters. So, if you suddenly killed Exxon/Mobil tomorrow, their emissions would just be transferred over to whatever company picks up their business, almost seamlessly.
What's needed is for the economic framework to reward lower carbon emissions.
Science is in a no-win situation here. If we solve the problem and reduce emissions and no additional warming or catastrophic consequences occur, people like you will say the science was flawed and will be less likely to heed warnings in the future. If we continue along our present course, catastrophic consequences will almost certainly occur. If the latter happens at least us "greens" will be able to point to those consequences and say, "you should have listened", but you'll probably just tell us it's a natural cycle.
No the science says we are past the point of doing anything to change it.
https://www.sciencealert.com/s...
https://www.sciencealert.com/s...
I love settled science
So what you are arguing for is making people more miserable than they supposedly will be any way.
If you look at it that way, just 100 companies have then probably been the source of more than 70% of the world's wealth, reduction in hunger, reduction in poverty, etc. It's then because of those 100 companies that you don't freeze, starve, or die of horrible diseases. So, be grateful that those 100 companies exist.
Plus 3-4 billion people. (taking a rough guess as to how many consumers it takes to generate 70% of the world's emissions)
Point being, the responsibility isn't wholly on corporations. But also on the nations of the world, their governments, and the people of the world.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
For consistency why isn't these countries pursues with same venom and vitriol as Exxon and Shell? Exxon, Shell, and all privately held companies are held to much higher environmental standard then anyone of these state owned companies.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Anyone who wants to call CO2 emissions a pollutant should be required to try to live without it for a month.
Anyone who wants to call CO2 emissions not a pollutant should be required to breathe nothing else for five minutes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A company that provides you with fuel for your car does not actually produce the emissions, your car produces the emissions, you are the one driving it.
Global warming is systemic, that's the point to take away from this article. Your argument is flawed because you can apply it to all players: the consumers are responsible because they keep consuming; the producers are responsible because they keep producing.
However there is a difference, individual consumers are powerless to make any difference, practical alternatives come from above, the control lies in the hands of the relative few who own the infrastructure and the businesses.
To see the consumer as the sole blame instead of just a part of the equation is the same argument that "save the planet" hippies use to guilt people into buying "green" branded bullshit that make no difference. Don't carry on pissing in the wind, take a step back and see the big picture!