A new study shows that just a handful of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful organisations are responsible for the overwhelming majority of all pollution.
Just 36 companies produced more than half of the world’s carbon emissions in 2023, according to a report by Carbon Majors.
The top five polluters alone – Saudi Aramco, Coal India, CHN Energy, National Iranian Oil Co., and Jinneng Group – produced 7.4 billion tonnes of CO2.
This is equivalent to 17.4 per cent of all global emissions.
Experts have called the findings ‘truly alarming’, and are calling for the companies to take responsibilty for their sky-high emissions.
Tzeporah Berman, Founder and Co-chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, says: ‘It is truly alarming that the largest fossil fuel companies continue to increase their emissions in the face of worsening natural disasters caused by climate change, disregarding scientific evidence that these emissions are harming us all.
‘It is clearer than ever that dirty private companies, driven by profits and business as usual, will never choose to self-regulate.’
Scroll down to see the full list of the 36 most polluting companies.
36 of the world’s biggest companies produced more than half of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2023, a study has shown. The biggest producer of all was Saudi Aramco (pictured), which was responsible for 4.38 per cent of the world’s total emissions
In 2023, 169 companies were responsible for producing 33.9 gigatonnes of CO2 or other equivalent greenhouse gases. Of those companies, 93 actually produced more C02 in 2023 than in 2022. This graph shows the different sources of emissions since the Industrial Revolution
The Carbon Majors report measures the attributable emissions of the 169 biggest active producers of oil, gas, coal, and cement around the world.
By combining these companies’ reported production levels with an estimate of the pollution created in the production process, Carbon Majors estimates how much CO2 or other greenhouse gases each company creates.
This reveals that a few massive entities are responsible for a huge part of the world’s greenhouse gas production.
The Carbon Majors dataset covers emissions from 1854 to 2023, revealing that 67.5 per cent of human-caused industrial CO2 emissions since the Industrial Revolution can be traced to 180 corporate and state-producing entities in the database
As of 2023, those organisations have pumped 33.9 billion tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
In, 2023 the 20 biggest carbon-producing entities collectively created 17.5 gigatonnes of CO2 – 40 per cent of global fossil fuel and cement emissions.
For comparison, that is more than 54 times the emissions produced by the entirety of the UK in the same year.
The biggest CO2 producer in 2023 was Saudi Aramco which was responsible for 1,839 million tonnes of CO2 – 4.38 per cent of the global total.
Coal remains the single biggest contributor to climate change, producing more than 40 per cent of global emissions. Of the 20 most polluting companies, seven were coal producers. These include six Chinese companies and one Indian company
Saudi Aramco is the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil and gas producer and the largest fossil fuel company in the world, producing 11.5 million barrels of oil per day.
This was followed by Coal India, the largest government-owned coal producer in the world, which was responsible for 1,548 million tonnes of C02 – 3.68 per cent of the global total.
Following closely in third was CNH Energy, also known as China Energy, which created 1,533 million tonnes of emissions – 3.65 per cent of the global total.
The fourth and fifth biggest polluters were the National Iranian Oil Company and China’s state-owned Jinneng group which were responsible for 1,262 million and 1,228 million tonnes of CO2 respectively.
The most polluting British-owned company was BP, which created 347 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, making it the 25th biggest polluter.
Christiana Figueres, Chair of The Earthshot Prize Foundation, says: ‘The carbon majors are keeping the world hooked on fossil fuels with no plans to slow production.
‘While states drag their heels on their Paris Agreement commitments, state-owned companies are dominating global emissions—ignoring the desperate needs of their citizens.’
State-owned companies were by far the biggest sources of CO2 emissions, making up 16 of the 20 biggest emitters in 2023.
16 of the world’s 20 most polluting companies were state-owned entities such as the Russian Gazprom. Pictured: Gazprom’s Moscow oil refinery complex
Eight of the 20 most polluting state-owned companies were Chinese. China was a particularly large producer of coal energy which contributes to its outsized climate impact. Pictured: Guoha Power Station in Hebei province, China
The National Iranian Oil Company is one of the world’s largest producers of C02 and is responsible for 1,262 million tonnes of C02. Pictured: The Persian Gulf Star gas condensates facility in Abbas, Iran
Eight of those state-owned companies were Chinese entities which, collectively, produce more than 17 per cent of all global emissions.
Overall, the 68 state-owned companies in the database produced 22.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions – more than half of the world’s fossil fuel and cement-linked emissions.
Meanwhile, the five most polluting investor-owned companies were ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP.
Together these five entities produced 2.2 billion tonnes of CO2 or equivalent greenhouse gases.
Coal producers also featured heavily among the biggest producers, with six Chinese coal companies and one Indian producer making the top 20.
Coal was still the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions and made up 41 per cent of global emissions.
However, cement production is now the fastest-growing source of pollution as emissions rose significantly between 2022 and 2023.
During cement production, limestone is heated to very high temperatures in kilns in order to undergo a process called calcination.
While other forms of emissions production have remained relatively steady since the 2010s, cement has now become the fastest-growing source of C02. Cement companies produced 6.5 per cent more CO2 in 2023 than in 2022 (shown as grey line)
As cement factories heat limestone they release vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere. Pictured: A cement factory in Changshu, China
This is not only a very energy-intensive process but also releases vast quantities of CO2 as the limestone undergoes a chemical reaction.
The amount of CO2 produced by cement companies increased by 6.5 per cent year on year.
Additionally, four of the five companies with the greatest increases in emissions in 2023 were cement companies – Holcim Group, Heidelberg Materials, UltraTech Cement, and CRH.
Emmett Connaire, Senior Analyst at InfluenceMap which produced the Carbon Majors report, says: ‘Despite global climate commitments, a small group of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers are significantly increasing production and emissions.
‘InfluenceMap’s research highlights the disproportionate impact these companies have on the climate crisis, with some now facing legal action in the US under Climate Superfund laws, informed by findings from the database.’
