- Only 57 fossil fuels and cement producers have been responsible for most of the world’s CO2 emissions since 2016, according to the Carbon Majors report by InfluenceMap
- Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, and Coal India were the top three CO2-emitting companies during this period.
- InfluenceMap’s database aims to increase transparency around climate change contributors for legal, academic, campaign, and investor purposes.
All fine and good except those 57 companies encompass 80% of all fossil fuel business right?
I’m not saying it doesn’t need to be fixed, but I am saying that it’s misleading.
I think the takeaway is that it’s a lot easier to change the behavior of 57 companies than it is to change the behavior of billions of people and it’s bullshit that individual action is the only proposed solution to climate change under capitalism.
Not just that, but individual action among a sea of intentional obfuscation, green washing, and while still pushing overconsumption.
That’s a nice dream. I hope it can come true, but those 57 companies also own 90% of the US Congress and probably a large swath of the governments in 2nd and third-world countries. The people that need to make them stop are almost literally on their payroll.
Focusing on those 57 companies doesn’t really address that issue though.
These companies sell fossil fuels. If they actually reduce those sales in any significant way we’d still have to figure out how to get all their customers switched to other fuel sources.
There’s a huge demand for their product so when we go after one of them the others take their place and they’re collectively too big to take on all at once.
The most successful strategy seems to be to make them obsolete. We’ve finally been getting to the point where many renewable energy sources are cheaper than fossil fuels. The other big motivator is fear of the control that oil producing nations might have. There’s some element of individual action but it’s more about government policies and market pressure. Take China or the EU, for example. They’ve been shifting heavily away from fossil fuels. Some of that is likely due to the increasing domestic and international concerns about pollution. They’re also both net oil importers.
That may be boring stuff to most people but it really gets the attention of governments that don’t want to be at the mercy of oil exporters. The kind of attention that gets meaningful laws passed.
Its even more misleading that you would count the fossil fuels used by other companies towards the producer. You can’t decrease the emissions by doing anything about these companies (without collapsing the whole economy), you need to transition the consumers to different energy sources.
It is like saying the Water companies are responsible for 100% of water usage…
I agree and the market is not offering an affordable, equally capable alternative to combustion engines. EVs are a larp for anyone who needs to do more than just commute to and from work. (e.g. long distance travel, towing, hauling)
This is the best idea I’ve seen for hauling. It’s also basically open source.
Electrified rail will always be superior. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, we already have the tech to switch over to low carbon/carbon neutral transportation.
With that said, I’d still 100% prefer something like that over diesel, especially if used in conjunction with this tech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
Trains should be the overwhelming majority of the transportation, with the last mile being electrified trucks.
Electrified rail is great if it’s available but it’s more than often not. In the absence of the electrified tracks trains use a diesel generator electric engine hybrid to haul which isn’t terrible imo. Trains are just a part of the logistical puzzle though. Trucking is THE way things get from point A to point B in the US and it’s not going away anytime soon. The kind of infrastructure required for the solution in your video is cool but to your point probably needs to be paired with some hybrid technology so trucks can still thrive in flyover country where building and maintaining electric highway infrastructure isn’t pragmatic.
I am aware of the current situation, the “is”, I was instead talking about the “ought”.
We currently depend on trucking and diesel trains, but we ought to switch to electrified rail and truck.
It’s cool, and a huge change. A necessary change though.
For rural areas, trains are the way to go. They are faster, lower carbon emission, and all round lower energy requirements per unit of freight.
The only real problem with them is hills, which isn’t exactly a problem for the majority of the U.S.