And so the smoke clears: Polluters list points the way to combating climate change

[kristopher]

Last edited Fri Jan 3, 2014, 12:39 PM - Edit history (1)

Polluters list points the way to combating climate change
Just 90 companies are revealed as having produced two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions, clearing the smoke that envelops action on global warming
Posted by Damian Carrington
Wednesday 20 November 2013


Coal open cast mine near Ordos, Inner Mongolia province, China
Trucks load at a new open cast mine near Ordos, Inner Mongolia province, China, November 2008. The mine is part of the state owned Shenhua Group, China's largest coal company and world's largest too. Photograph: Jonathan Watts for the Guardian

And so the smoke clears: just 90 companies produced two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions that have been smothering the planet since the dawn of the industrial revolution. The new research is a landmark because knowing exactly who caused global warming is a big step towards knowing how to stop it.

It is tempting to see the list as a rogues gallery, full of familiar names such as ExxonMobil who have lavishly funded campaigns to deny the role of fossil fuels in climate change. The prospect of legal challenges to extract damages from the titans of the extractive industry looks attractive, particularly as scientists get ever better at attributing extreme weather events to the heat trapped by carbon dioxide.

...It is now clearer than ever before that a just few dozen companies and cartels have presided over the mass pollution of our planet, unknowingly for many years but no longer. Energy fuels the world economy and the list shows just how that power has been concentrated in astonishingly few hands. There are few more terrifying threats a government faces than the lights going out or the petrol pumps running dry.

Energy companies are the biggest corporations the world has ever seen and this concentration of immense power makes them the biggest vested interests ever to do battle with the public good.

<snip>

This carbon bubble is starting to be taken seriously by the biggest financial institutions in the world, from Citibank to HSBC to Goldman Sachs. If you think the idea of a carbon bubble...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/nov/20/climate-change-carbon-emissions-90-companies

Edited to add graph from GreenPeace

[dipsydoodle]

1. Because its not a company

the list makes no mention of the US Department of Defense - one of the greatest polluters on the planet according to some.

[kristopher]

2. That's a good point. Perhaps, if we...

...get rid of the stranglehold that fossil fuels have on the economic well being of the world, the willingness to do something about bloated military establishments will emerge.

Perhaps.

[freshwest]

3. Refreshing honesty in this piece:

...But the pollution belongs to all of those whose lives have been transformed over the last 250 years by cheap energy. Instead, the value of the work is that it has produced a power list, in every sense.

It is now clearer than ever before that a just few dozen companies and cartels have presided over the mass pollution of our planet, unknowingly for many years but no longer. Energy fuels the world economy and the list shows just how that power has been concentrated in astonishingly few hands. There are few more terrifying threats a government faces than the lights going out or the petrol pumps running dry.*

Energy companies are the biggest corporations the world has ever seen and this concentration of immense power makes them the biggest vested interests ever to do battle with the public good.

So, while the past is a foreign country where they did things differently, to paraphrase L P Hartley's opening to his novel of lost innocence, the power list points to a more hopeful future. That is because the list shows that the levers of power that must be shifted to avoid climate meltdown are held by relatively few hands...

*This is why governments call energy interests matters of 'national security.' Even if it means going to war for them.

Our own nation, even if there were no bad actors, has given in to the energy companies to maintain government. Many see the value of government with its protection of individual rights as more important than anything.

We will have to give up things in order to live in a sustainable way. It means we will adapt or fall apart and not save ourselves or the environment.

Corporations do not exist to protect us or the environment. They are, as an advocate told me about using some legal associations to get things done for people, like swining a snake in your hands to hit the enemy.

They will curl back and bite you in the end, they are valuable tools for the knowledge they specialize in, but they are often not true allies. They serve a purpose, and they have fulfilled that in history and we are going to have to figure out to put them down gently.

They see no reason, like the military, to stand down when they think they have done something important. Some of what they do will always be important. It appears mankind is in a race to get this settled and move onto to another way of living. It will be good for all of us but perhaps many will live better. And if unburdened with wrongdoing, they will understand true freedom.

[kristopher]

4. Twenty tar sands companies responsible for one sixth of all man-made global warming emissions

From GreenPeace Canada

Twenty tar sands companies responsible for one sixth of all man-made global warming emissions
Blogpost by Keith Stewart - November 21, 2013 at 14:33

Twenty members of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) are jointly responsible for almost one sixth of all CO2 and methane emitted by human activity since the dawn of the industrial age. And the fact that we now know this could end up costing them a lot of money.

We know this because scientist Richard Heede published a paper today in the academic journal Climatic Change entitled Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854-2010 (see also The Guardian’s story and interactive infographic on the report, as well as a Greenpeace backgrounder).

This research shows, for the first time, how 90 named entities (the largest multinational and state-owned producers of crude oil, natural gas, coal, and cement) have contributed the lion’s share (63 percent) of cumulative global CO2 and methane emissions over the last century and a half.

This information interests me as both a part-time academic and as a Greenpeace campaigner because of what it means for the issue of responsibility in climate politics.



Policy changes that seem politically impossible today may appear inevitable once oil company shareholders start sharing the pain of the victims of global warming-related extreme weather events.

Right now, governments are paying the bulk of the costs for cleaning up after extreme weather events like the Calgary floods, typhoon Haiyan or hurricane Sandy. But as climate change makes these "weather on steroids" events more common, taxpayers are going to want those who created the problem to foot part of the bill to clean up the mess and prevent future ones.

Heede’s phrasing regarding the political implications of his work displays suitably academic caution, as he “invites consideration of the suggestion that some degree of responsibility for both cause and remedy for climate change rests with those entities that have extracted, refined, and marketed the preponderance of the historic carbon fuels.”

Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes is more direct, noting that Heede’s research points to an evolving trend in climate science: “Many people argue that ‘we are all responsible for climate change.’ But this research shows that’s a misleading statement, because some of us have used and profited from fossil fuels much more than others. This study gives us some data to jump-start a discussion that more accurately addresses the responsibility issue.” ...

More at:
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/twenty-tar-sands-companies-responsible-for-on/blog/47476/