The Guardian reports about an new study, apparently accepted for publication in Climatic Change (it is not yet up on their Online first page). The new report says:
The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests.
The companies range from investor-owned firms – household names such as Chevron, Exxon and BP – to state-owned and government-run firms.
The analysis, which was welcomed by the former vice-president Al Gore as a "crucial step forward" found that the vast majority of the firms were in the business of producing oil, gas or coal,...
"There are thousands of oil, gas and coal producers in the world," climate researcher and author Richard Heede at the Climate Accountability Institute in Colorado said. "But the decision makers, the CEOs, or the ministers of coal and oil if you narrow it down to just one person, they could all fit on a Greyhound bus or two."Reducing the wicked problem of climate change to this level of moralizing and demonizing is remarkable. So we could get rid of the problem if drove the bus over a cliff? If true, the only branch of science left with some work would be moral philosophy.
The article also quotes Michael Mann saying:
Michael Mann, the climate scientist, said he hoped the list would bring greater scrutiny to oil and coal companies' deployment of their remaining reserves. "What I think could be a game changer here is the potential for clearly fingerprinting the sources of those future emissions," he said. "It increases the accountability for fossil fuel burning. You can't burn fossil fuels without the rest of the world knowing about it."Especially the last sentence is wonderful.
I guess to make the argument complete, the fossil fuel-dependence / junkie analogy needs to be made. Will people be told to brace themselves for cold turkey?
h/t Mark Caine