Largest Producers of Industrial Carbon Emissions
Over the past several years, scientists have succeeded in tracking with increasing confidence the portion of climate change that is tied directly to human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels.
Recently published research documents that nearly two-thirds, 63 percent, of the industrial carbon pollution released into the atmosphere since 1854 can be directly traced to the carbon extracted from the Earth by just 90 entities — 83 producers of coal, oil, and natural gas, and seven cement manufacturers.
Almost all of these giant multinational corporations, state-held companies, and fully nationalized companies are still operating today.
Topping the list of private and state-held companies are Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, British Petroleum, Gazprom, Shell and the National Iranian Oil Company. These seven companies alone have produced almost one-fifth (18.7 percent) of all industrial carbon released into the atmosphere since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
Get involved! You + Your Computer = Carbon Detective
You can help determine, for the first time, how the world's major carbon producers are contributing to the growing consequences of climate change.
Simply contribute the spare processing time on your computer and you can help complete the vast amount of computations required to fully document the effects and damages resulting from the actions of major carbon producers.
UCS is currently collaborating with top scientists around the world on this ground-breaking research—but we need your help to make it happen.