A new analysis released last week by the international non-profit InfluenceMap reveals an overwhelmingly unequal share of fossil fuel pollution worldwide. From 2016 to 2022, 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions were produced by just 57 companies.
This is extremely misleading–those companies produce those emissions in the course of creating the products that the rest of us ‘down the pipeline’ (pardon the pun) consume.
So, to everyone who’s like ‘all the things I do to reduce my footprint are meaningless because it’s these guys at the top creating all the pollution’? No, it’s not fucking meaningless. You and others like you consuming less is precisely THE way to get those companies at the ‘top of the supply chain’ to pollute less.
Not to defend the fossil fuel use, but you’re right. I work in manufacturing industry and when I look around I finally realised “yeah, I can see why companies are mostly responsible for carbon emissions .” The drugs and electronics the consumers use are only made possible because of high energy intensive processes. The plastic we use and take for granted in everyday lives are also made from fossil fuels. Unless renewable energy could reliably scale up sooner to accommodate for the increasing global energy usage, then I’m afraid we still have to rely on fossil fuels for now.
This is wrong on top of wrong. First off, it’s 57 entities (including “Former Soviet Union”) producing 80% of the emissions tracked by the database – which covers “88% of total fossil fuel and cement emissions,” and totals 251G tonnes of CO2 equivalent gasses (CO2e) from 2016 through 2012 [1]. So with that we have 200Gt making up 70% of the global total over that 7 year period.
But fossil fuels and cement emissions are not the only source of greenhouse gasses. Human-caused global emissions are roughly 53GtCO2e annually during that time [2], for a total of 370Gt across all sources. So 200Gt is about 54% of that.
Most importantly though, this is a ridiculous measure in the first place. Who cares how many people are responsible for digging up the fuels that people are directly burning themselves in their homes and cars? If every oil well had its own company, how would that improve emissions? Nearly half of emissions are from individuals, and much of the rest is directly driven by consumer demand (e.g. power companies burning coal and gas).
So to most effectively address climate change we need individuals to change their behavior. So we can just tell everyone to do that, and we are all set, right? Clearly not. We need to:
Tax Carbon
Taxing “carbon” (really all GHG emissions) creates incentives for individuals and companies to use less, making trade-offs and choosing less carbon-intensive products. It moves the threshold for switching over to cleaner and more efficient technologies. People who refuse to acknowledge climate change will still change their behavior for personal benefit. People who want to make the world better will have more options and less reliance on company marketing/greenwashing.
As mentioned on that page, the best use of this tax is to give it back to everyone equally. Those who pollute less than average come out ahead. Those who pollute more pay for it in (indirect) taxes.
I’m surprised the number is that low. I would have assumed it’d be hundreds, or even thousands of companies. The fact that it’s not even 60 companies is what is surprising.
So the fact that I drive a hybrid†, minimize my overall driving, only buy like 3 tanks of gas a year, have cut out 70% of my beef consumption (yay, Beyond, Impossible, et al), and generally try to reduce or at least minimize my carbon and pollution footprint…means nothing. Great.
Still going to keep doing my part ‡ even though it’s not even a drop in the bucket.
† When I bought it, an EV wasn’t practical for my situation. It’s only 6 years old and has plenty of life left, so figure it’s worth it to hang onto it.
‡ Yes, I know the whole “carbon footprint” thing is basically victim-blaming propaganda. Doesn’t mean I still shouldn’t try to minimize my environmental impact regardless.
Well, if any of those are oil companies, your driving an EV is cutting demand for their product*. I wonder what other products are in there. I’m not trying to place blame back on consumers. We do vote with our money, but we’re also sometimes trapped by our needs and choices in ways that only regulation might solve. I think the second part is the point of any story like this one, but the first part is something we can still try to do.
Well, cutting demand for oil as long as we keep making progress towards low-carbon energy sources.
Add comment