This article is a list of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. the

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...

from

companies A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of legal people, whether natural, juridical or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specifi ...

, activities, and

countries A country is a distinct part of the Earth, world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, List of states with limited r ...

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

which cause

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. The relevant

greenhouse gases Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...

are mainly:

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...

nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or factitious air, among others, is a chemical compound, an Nitrogen oxide, oxide of nitrogen with the Chemical formula, formula . At room te ...

and the fluorinated gases

bromofluorocarbon Bromofluorocarbons (BFCs) are molecules based on carbon, bromine, and fluorine. The most common use has traditionally been in Wildfire suppression, fire suppression systems. The brand name "Halon" is frequently used interchangeably for BFCs. ow ...

chlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly Halogenation, halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F). They are produced as volatility (chemistry), volat ...

hydrochlorofluorocarbon Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are fully or partly halogenated hydrocarbons that contain carbon (C), hydrogen (H), chlorine (Cl), and fluorine (F). They are produced as volatile derivatives of methane, ethane, ...

hydrofluorocarbon Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are synthetic organic compounds that contain fluorine and hydrogen atoms, and are the most common type of organofluorine compounds. Most are gases at room temperature and pressure. They are frequently used in air condit ...

nitrogen trifluoride Nitrogen trifluoride is the inorganic compound with the formula (). It is a colorless, non-flammable, toxic gas with a slightly musty odor. In contrast with ammonia, it is nonbasic. It finds increasing use within the manufacturing of flat-panel ...

perfluorocarbons Fluorocarbons are chemical compounds with carbon-fluorine bonds. Compounds that contain many C-F bonds often have distinctive properties, e.g., enhanced stability, volatility, and hydrophobicity. Several fluorocarbons and their derivatives are ...

and

sulfur hexafluoride Sulfur hexafluoride or sulphur hexafluoride ( British spelling) is an inorganic compound with the formula SF6. It is a colorless, odorless, non-flammable, and non-toxic gas. has an octahedral geometry, consisting of six fluorine atoms attache ...

. The extraction and subsequent use of

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

, oil and

natural gas Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...

, as a fuel source, is the largest contributor to

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

Carbon dioxide

Ranked 10 most countries

During June of 2023, with 12,705 million

tonnes The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the s ...

CO2e produced,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

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.

Scope 1+3 emissions, cumulative of the years 1988 - 2015, from oil and gas extraction

This section uses data from a climate

accountability In ethics and governance, accountability is equated with answerability, culpability, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public secto ...

report of Heede of the Carbon Accountability Institute, and van Der Vlugt and Griffin of the

Carbon Disclosure Project The CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) is an international non-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom, Japan, India, China, Germany, Brazil and the United States that helps companies, cities, states, regions and public authoriti ...

. 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. 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. 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 A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...

; which is categorized as a downstream. The relevant tables below have a ranking of 20 industrial greenhouse gas emitters from 1988 to 2015 from the Carbon Majors Database (CDP) report, a 10 July 2017

dataset A data set (or dataset) is a collection of data. In the case of tabular data, a data set corresponds to one or more database tables, where every column of a table represents a particular variable, and each row corresponds to a given record o ...

of GtCO2e. 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 The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ) is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing and oil-dependent countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize Profit (eco ...

2016):

All cause 1+3 cumulative emissions

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

newspaper (England, Britain) and

Acciona Acciona, S.A. () is a Spanish multinational conglomerate dedicated to the development and management of infrastructure (construction, water, industrial and services) and renewable energy. The company, via subsidiary Acciona Energía, produces 21 ...

(bracketed); both citing CDP:

Scope 3

Scope 3 emissions are thought to be approximately 90% of the total from any company (Scope 1) and result from fuel

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion ...

=Vehicle emissions

Pickup trucks A pickup truck or pickup is a light or medium duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removabl ...

were found to produce the most emissions in a group of vehicles including SUVs and

cars A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

, in a survey reported January 2022. Excluding pickup trucks, the most polluting car type surveyed 2017 is the 2011 - 2020

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile brand, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with other assets, from its previous owner, American Motors Co ...

Grand Cherokee which creates 372 grams per kilometre from the exhaust pipe, the 2007 - 2014

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the compa ...

R8 creates 346, thirdly the

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ) is an American automobile division of the manufacturer General Motors (GM). In North America, Chevrolet produces and sells a wide range of vehicles, from subcompact automobiles to medium-duty commercial trucks. Due to the promi ...

Camaro 335, the tenth most polluting, the

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in luxury, high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Th ...

Macan creates 291.

=Home: cooking fuels and technologies

= The

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

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.

Largest sources carbon dioxide (Scope 1)

This part details most emissions for the year 2021 using

Climate TRACE Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) is an independent group which monitors and publishes greenhouse gas emissions. It launched in 2021 before COP26, and improves monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of both ...

Largest point source (Scope 1)

This section details production sites at single locations where the most pollution exists or existed in the recent past. During March 2020,

Secunda CTL Secunda CTL is a synthetic fuel plant owned by Sasol at Secunda, Mpumalanga in South Africa. It uses coal liquefaction to produce petroleum-like synthetic crude oil from coal. The process used by Sasol is based on the Fischer–Tropsch proces ...

, owned by

Sasol Sasol Limited, commonly referred to as Sasol, is an integrated energy and chemical company based in Sandton, South Africa. The company was formed in 1950 in Sasolburg, South Africa, and built around coal liquefaction processes that German ...

, a

synthetic fuel Synthetic fuel or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes Fuel gas, gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by ...

and chemicals from coal plant in Secunda, South Africa, was the producer of the single most emissions, at 56.5 million tonnes of a year. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) of the

Government of South Africa The Government of South Africa, or South African Government, is the national government of the Republic of South Africa, a parliamentary republic with a three-tier system of government and an independent judiciary, operating in a parliamentary ...

determined Sasol has until 1 April 2025 to comply with the

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

limits for emissions, as described by the Air Quality Act 2004:Part 3; 12; Category 3. Sasol's pledge to reduce its emissions from the plant by 10% by 2030 was reported during November 2020, during 2023 it was reported that this was amended to 30%.https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/hydrogen/africa-hydrogen/477652/sasol-signs-up-green-power-at-secunda-sasolburg/ https://www.energyvoice.com/ , the gas-fired power plant which emits the most was the Taichung Power Station in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, at 34.19 million tonnes .https://climatetrace.org/map Retrieved 14 June 2023

Methane

Sources of

anthropogenic Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to: * Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity Anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows: * Human impact on the enviro ...

production are in the majority: *natural gas, petroleum, and coal mining: the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

produced the most recent emissions from oil and gas sources at least prior to April 2023. *livestock production systems;

manure Manure is organic matter that is used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Most manure consists of animal feces; other sources include compost and green manure. Manures contribute to the fertility of soil by adding organic matter and nut ...

and enteric fermentation, *waste deposit sites: landfills

waste water Wastewater (or waste water) is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes. Another definition of wastewater is "Used water from any combination of do ...

Carbon bomb projects (new extractions)

A carbon bomb, or climate bomb, is any new extraction of

hydrocarbons In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic; their odor is usually faint, and may b ...

from underground whose potential

exceed 1 billion tonnes of 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 The Paris Agreement (also called the Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords) is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was ...

. According to these researchers, defusing carbon bombs should be a priority for climate change mitigation policy. According to the same study, the Global Energy Monitor and "Banking on Climate Chaos" associations, between 2016 and 2022, the main backers of these climate bombs are the American banks

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services, finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is List of largest banks in the United States, the largest ba ...

Citibank Citibank, N.A. ("N. A." stands for "National bank (United States), National Association"; stylized as citibank) is the primary U.S. banking subsidiary of Citigroup, a financial services multinational corporation, multinational corporation. Ci ...

and

Bank of America The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America) (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in ...

. Between 2020 and 2022, at least twenty new "climate bombs" went into operation, reveals an international journalistic investigation. In this survey, France's

TotalEnergies TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas explorati ...

is cited as the second most responsible group for fossil mega-fields, with a presence at 23 major hydrocarbon extraction sites. In November 2023, China's China Energy will lead the ranking and

Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ') or Aramco (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is a majority state-owned petroleum and natural gas company that is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. , it is the fourth- l ...

of Saudi Arabia will be third.

Examples

* Exploitation of new coal mines in Australia. * Exploiting Canada's

oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...

. * Shale gas extraction, for instance in Permian basin in Texas.

References

External links

*Stephen Conmy 4 April 202
News Analysis The 20 most polluting companies in the world
https://www.thecorporategovernanceinstitute.com/ * * * For "carbon bomb" projects:
carbonbombs.org

leave-it-in-the-ground.org

permianclimatebomb.org

Carbon Bomb Map
{{Use dmy dates, date=December 2024 Climate change History of climate variability and change

Greenhouse gas Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of planets such as the Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. T ...

Environmental disasters Greenhouse gas emissions