The 10 worst environmental offenders

Formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, the CDP is a nonprofit organization that is urging companies to take responsibility for their environmental impacts.

In collaboration with the Climate Accountability Institute, the CDP published the Carbon Majors Report in 2017. The data revealed that more than half of global industrial emissions can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned companies.

Furthermore, the report disclosed that only 100 companies have been responsible for over 70 percent of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since 1988. The following entities were the top ten highest producers of harmful emissions between 1988 and 2015.

China (Coal)
China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal, and it shows in the results of the investigation by the CDP. According to the report, the coal industry in China was responsible for 14.32 percent of the world’s GHG emissions.

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco)

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, also known as simply Aramco, is the world’s largest oil and gas company. During the study period, Aramco contributed 4.5 percent of emissions across the planet.

Gazprom OAO

Russia’s largest company is Gazprom OAO, which extracts, produces, transports, and sales natural gas. During 28 out of 29 years of the company’s existence, Gazprom OAO contributed nearly 4 percent of the world’s total emissions.

National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC)
The NIOC is a government-owned oil and natural gas producer and distributor located in Tehran, and is the second largest oil and gas company on the planet. NIOC’s activity was found to be the source of 2.28 percent of global emissions.

ExxonMobil Corp

With operations all over the world, ExxonMobil is the largest publicly traded oil and gas company. This corporation racked up 1.98 percent of total emissions.

India (Coal)
India is the world’s fourth largest producer of coal and had an estimated 306.6 billion metric tons of coal reserves in 2015. India’s coal industry accounted for 1.87 percent of overall GHG emissions.

Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex)

Pemex is a state-owned oil company in Mexico City which was single-handedly responsible for 1.87 percent of harmful emissions during the study period.

Russia (Coal)

Russia is the sixth largest coal producer in the world. Even though coal-powered energy consumption has been declining since 1990, Russia’s coal industry still pumped out 1.86 percent of all harmful emissions.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC

Shell is a multinational oil and gas company based in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Royal Dutch Shell is the sixth-largest oil and gas company and the source 1.67 percent of overall emissions.

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC)
As one of the largest integrated energy groups, CNPC is made up of multiple oil and gas companies. These subsidiaries collectively emitted 1.56 percent of all greenhouse gases from 1988 to 2015, according to the CDP.

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer