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90 firms responsible for emitting two-thirds of world's deadly gases since 1751: Study -Vishwa Mohan
-The Times of India


NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing debate over how to arrive at a global climate deal which may be acceptable to all nations, new research on greenhouse gas emissions has listed 90 companies - mostly belonging to rich countries - as the major culprits who emitted nearly two-thirds of the total carbon dioxide and methane emissions in the world since 1751.

Climate Change

Though the list also carries the names of three Indian public sector companies - Coal India Limited, ONGC and Singareni Collieries Company Limited - and coal and cement producers of China, the research will further strengthen the developing countries' argument seeking developed nations to act on emission cuts keeping in mind their historical responsibility.

Analysis of the research - conducted by Richard Heede at the Colorado-based Climate Accountability Institute - was published in scientific journal 'Climatic Change' at a time when rich and poor nations were at loggerheads over the issue of differentiation between 'developed' and 'developing' countries during the climate conference in Warsaw last week.

The US-led rich nations have long been arguing to end this differentiation, pointing out that developing countries including growing economies like India and China are equally responsible for high emissions in the past couple of decades.

At present, only developed countries have obligation to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol which spares the poor nations and growing economies from such responsibility. Developing countries do not want dilution of such clause at any cost once they will arrive at a universal climate deal in Paris in 2015, arguing that the "historical responsibility" must be factored in during any future agreement.

The differentiation is based on the premise that the historical responsibilities for climate change lie with the rich nations who were among the first lot of countries to be industrialized.

The new research will help the developing countries push this argument further as it found that the majority of the companies that had contributed to global warming through high emissions during 1751-2010 was based in rich countries like the US, the UK, Germany, France, Japan and Canada among others.

The research shows that 90 companies from across the globe had emitted 63% of total industrial emissions (carbon dioxide and methane) during 1751-2010.

Though the report has put remaining 37% of the total emissions under the "unattributed" category, it carried a detailed list of all state-owned and private entities which were responsible for emitting 914 gigatonnes of CO2 and methane during the period since beginning of industrial age.

Of these entities, 56 are oil and natural gas companies, 37 are coal producers (including coal subsidiaries of Oil and Gas Company) and seven are cement producers. The list of 90 includes 50 investor-owned (private) companies, 31 state-owned (public) companies and nine ran by nation-states (communist block like former USSR, China, North Korea, Poland, Czech Republic among others)

In fact, 40% of the total such private entities operate in US - the country that had been most vocal while seeking to dilute the differentiation between 'developed' and 'developing' countries during the recently held climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.