The Carbon Majors Database stores greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions data on the largest company-related
sources of all time. CDP’s Carbon Majors Report 2017 is
the first in an ongoing series of publications aimed at using
this Database – the most comprehensive available – to
highlight the role that corporations can play in driving the
global energy transition.
Large-scale GHG emissions data has traditionally been
collected at the country-level. In fact, these emissions
can be traced to a smaller group of commercial decision
makers. The Carbon Majors Database was established
in 2013 by Richard Heede of the Climate Accountability
Institute (CAI) to show how these emissions are linked
to companies, or ‘Carbon Majors’. Now CDP works in
collaboration with the CAI to maintain the Database and
share its important data and insights with all stakeholders.
This report looks at industrial carbon dioxide and methane
emissions deriving from fossil fuel producers in the past,
present, and future. In 1988, human-induced climate
change was officially recognized through the establishment
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Since this time, the fossil fuel industry has doubled its
contribution to global warming by emitting as much
greenhouse gas in 28 years as in the 237 years between
1988 and the birth of the industrial revolution. Since 1988,
more than half of global industrial GHGs can be traced to
just 25 corporate and state producers.
Authors
- Published in
- United States of America