Even as global carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb to record heights, new analysis reveals that most of those emissions can be traced back to a shrinking number of major corporations, reports Inside Climate News.
Just 32 companies accounted for over half of CO2 emissions in 2024, according to the latest Carbon Majors analysis, published on Wednesday by UK-based think tank Influence Map. Saudi Arabia’s Aramco took the top spot with 1.79 billion metric tons, more than twice that of the largest privately owned polluter, ExxonMobil.
State-owned fossil fuel companies dominate the list, accounting for 17 of the top 20 emitters, and all are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at COP30 last December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, the UAE, Algeria, Iraq, Qatar, China and India. More than 80 countries supported the phaseout plan
“Each year, global emissions become increasingly concentrated among a shrinking group of high-emitting producers, while overall production continues to grow,” Emmett Connaire, senior analyst at Influence Map, said in a press statement.
“Simultaneously, these heavy emitters continue to use lobbying to obstruct a transition that the scientific community has known for decades is essential.”
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Emission would need to fall by 45 percent by 2030 to meet the goal set by the Paris climate agreement, and while limiting warming to 1.5°C now seems impossible, limiting overshoot remains critical to protecting communities from the worsening impacts of climate change.
Far from paring down emissions, the report found that many of the largest producers are increasing their fossil fuel output. Nearly two-thirds of the 32 companies identified in the report saw their emissions increase compared to 2023.
Tzeporah Berman, chair and founder of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said the analysis reveals that “a powerful, concentrated group of fossil fuel corporations are not only dominating global emissions but are actively sabotaging climate action and weakening government ambition.”
The initiative aims to push back, taking the first steps on negotiating a fossil fuel phaseout treaty this spring. Dozens of countries that supported the phaseout at COP30 will gather in Colombia in late April to develop this “indispensable mechanism to hold these giants accountable, break their stranglehold on climate policy, and ensure a fast and fair global transition away from the products threatening our very existence: oil, gas, and coal.”
