36 companies produce half the global emissions, a report

36 companies contributed to more than half of the global fossil fuel and cement carbon emissions, Carbon Majors 2023 Data Update report reveals. 

Carbon Majors is a historical database platform by Influence Map that tracks production data of 180 fossil fuel and cement producers with 169 still active entities. The database accounts for only 78.4% of the global emissions. 

The top 20 entities out of the 36 accounted for 40.8% global fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions in 2023. 80% of these entities are state-owned companies. 40% [Eight companies] are Chinese entities which account for 17.3% of the total fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions for the year. 

The top five state-owned (S-O) companies collectively accounted for 17.4% of the total global emissions whereas the top five investor-owned (I-O) companies have a significantly lower contribution to the global emissions. Collectively investor-owned companies account for only 4.9% of the total global emissions—a 12.5% gap between the two categories of entities in the dataset. [see chart below]

Share of state-owned and investor-owned companies in global emissions

The report shows that 93 entities out of the 169 active entities have increased emissions, out of which 42 were state owned companies and 50 were investor owned companies. Still, state owned companies accounted for more emissions than investor owned companies as per the report. 

Furthermore, the report also shows that both state-owned and investor-owned companies are opposed to climate regulation from the InfluenceMap’s LobbyMap database. State-owned companies perform worse with no company scoring above C in the performance grade showing they are less transparent about how much priority they place on climate policies and have increasingly obstructive climate policy engagement.

The increase in emissions is concerning as UN Emissions Gap Report 2024 reveals that despite existing climate climate agreements, the global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record high of 57.1 gigatonnes of CO2e in 2023 from 56.4 gigatonnes of CO2e in 2022 — an increase by 1.3%.

What is CO2e? CO2e, or carbon dioxide equivalent, is a unit of measurement that standardises the impact of different greenhouse gases (GHGs) on global warming by expressing them in terms of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2).

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Net Zero by 2050 report emphasises the necessity to immediately and drastically reduce coal, oil and gas consumptions to meet these targets. Yet coal remains the largest contributor to carbon emissions in 2023. 

In 2021, the IEA had also recommended to stop new oil, gas and fuel development immediately if the governments were serious about net zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore it also recommended to stop selling fossil fuel cars by 2035  and double investment in alternative energy sources from $2 trillion to $5 trillion per year.

Until recently, 2023 was the warmest year on record since 1850 — the record now broken by the year 2024, much to the dismay of climate experts who have been consistently pushing to stop fuel, gas and oil development and consumption. 

Despite warnings and recommendations, state-owned and investor-owned entities still continue to invest and develop fossil fuel and cement projects. For instance Saudi Aramco gave contracts worth more than $25 billion in 2024 for its strategic gas [fossil fuel] expansion which targets a 60% growth by 2030 compared to 2021 levels. 

In such circumstances, reaching emission targets might prove to be more difficult than said.