List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions
Emissions attributed to specific power stations around the world, color-coded by type of fuel used at the station. Lower half focuses on Europe and Asia[1]
During June of 2023, with 12705 million tonnes CO2e produced, China is the largest emitter; United States is second with 6,001, India 3,394, EU (which is 27 countries) 3,383, Russia 2,476, Japan 1,166, Brazil 1,057, Indonesia 1,002, Iran 893, and Canada 736.[7]
Scope 1+3 emissions, cumulative of the years 1988 - 2015, from oil and gas extraction
This section uses data from [8] a climate accountability[9] report of Heede of the Carbon Accountability Institute, and van Der Vlugt and Griffin of the Carbon Disclosure Project.[8] While data of emissions "Direct operational" and indirectly caused from the companies surveyed were indicated by the CDP, requests for data which were ignored by companies and emissions resulting from the use of products originating with companies were included as estimates by the researchers.[8] The data used by the CDP scientists is a composite of quantities of emissions as described via the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (GHGPCS): Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions (not including Scope 2) - these three being all the possible Scope-emission types. 1 is direct emissions sources from a companies owned or possessed resources, 3 is indirect sources subsequential from production activities; these are divided by GHGPCS into types: upstream and downstream, and 15 categories.[10] Scope 3 emissions are thought to be approximately 90% of the total from any company and result from the combustion of coal, and, or, oil, and, or, gas during the conversion of these into energy i.e. as fuel; which is categorized as a downstream.[8] The relevant tables below have a ranking of 20 industrial greenhouse gas emitters from 1988 to 2015 from the Carbon Majors Database (CDP)[11] report,[8] a 10 July 2017[12]dataset of GtCO2e.[13]
The table below shows the total combined (cumulative) emissions as a percentage of all emissions. Oil and gas production data was obtained from annual reports from company websites and the SEC (2016). For some state owned enterprises, data was sourced from the ‘Oil & Gas Journal’ (1986-2016)
or is estimated from national statistics (EIA 2017, BP 2016, and OPEC 2016):
Pickup trucks were found to produce the most emissions in a group of vehicles including SUVs and cars, in a survey reported January 2022.[16] Excluding pickup trucks, the most polluting car type surveyed 2017 is the 2011 - 2020 JeepGrand Cherokee which creates 372 grams per kilometre from the exhaust pipe, the 2007 - 2014 AudiR8 creates 346, thirdly the ChevroletCamaro 335, the tenth most polluting, the PorscheMacan creates 291.[17]
Home: cooking fuels and technologies
The World Health Organization considers that during 2018 approximately 3 billion people, which was more than 40% of the 2018 estimated global population, used polluting fuel sources in their residences.[18]
Largest sources carbon dioxide (Scope 1)
This part details most CO2 emissions for the year 2021 using Climate TRACE:[19]
This section details production sites at single locations where the most pollution exists or existed in the recent past.
During March 2020, Secunda CTL, owned by Sasol, a synthetic fuel[21] and chemicals from coal [22] plant in Secunda, South Africa, was the producer of the single most emissions, at 56.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year.[21] The Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) of the Government of South Africa determined Sasol has until 1 April 2025 to comply with the legal limits for emissions,[23][24] as described by the Air Quality Act 2004:Part 3; 12; Category 3.[25] Sasol's pledge to reduce its emissions from the plant by 10% by 2030 was reported during November 2020,[26] during 2023 it was reported that this was amended to 30%.[27]
Sources of anthropogenic production are in the majority:
natural gas, petroleum, and coal mining:[29] the United States produced the most recent emissions from oil and gas sources at least prior to April 2023.[30]
A carbon bomb, or climate bomb,[34] is any new extraction of hydrocarbons from underground whose potential greenhouse gas emissions exceed 1 billion tonnes of CO2 worldwide. In 2022, a study showed that there are 425 fossil fuel extraction projects (coal, oil and gas) with potential CO2 emissions of more than 1 billion tonnes worldwide. The potential emissions from these projects are twice the 1.5°C carbon budget of the Paris Agreement. According to these researchers, defusing carbon bombs should be a priority for climate change mitigation policy.[35]
Between 2020 and 2022, at least twenty new "climate bombs" went into operation, reveals an international journalistic investigation.[37][38][36] In this survey, France's TotalEnergies is cited as the second most responsible group for fossil mega-fields, with a presence at 23 major hydrocarbon extraction sites.[39] In November 2023, China's China Energy will lead the ranking and Saudi Aramco of Saudi Arabia will be third.[40]
