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Climatic Change (2014) 122:229241
DOI 10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y
Richard Heede
Received: 5 March 2013 /Accepted: 14 October 2013 /Published online: 22 November 2013 # The Author(s) 2013. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the historic fossil fuel and cement production records of the 50 leading investor-owned, 31 state-owned, and 9 nation-state producers of oil, natural gas, coal, and cement from as early as 1854 to 2010. This analysis traces emissions totaling 914 GtCO2e63 % of cumulative worldwide emissions of industrial
CO2 and methane between 1751 and 2010to the 90 carbon major entities based on the carbon content of marketed hydrocarbon fuels (subtracting for non-energy uses), process CO2 from cement manufacture, CO2 from flaring, venting, and own fuel use, and fugitive or vented methane. Cumulatively, emissions of 315 GtCO2e have been traced to investor-owned entities, 288 GtCO2e to state-owned enterprises, and 312 GtCO2e to nation-states. Of these emissions, half has been emitted since 1986. The carbon major entities possess fossil fuel reserves that will, if produced and emitted, intensify anthropogenic climate change. The purpose of the analysis is to understand the historic emissions as a factual matter, and to invite consideration of their possible relevance to public policy.
1 Introduction
It is now broadly accepted that anthropogenic climate change presents a serious threat to the health, prosperity, and stability of human communities, and to the stability and existence of non-human species and ecosystems (IPCC 2007; World Bank 2012b; Hoeppe 2011; Busby 2007). The international legal framework established in 1992 to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system has focused attention on the role of nation-states, and has led to commitments by many nation-states (particularly the Annex I or highly developed nations) to cut their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, current climate change is primarily driven by historic emissions (Allen et al. 2009b; Matthews et al. 2009; Wei et al. 2012; IPCC 2013), and the parties responsible for the dominant sources of historic emissions are not necessarily the same as those responsible for the dominant share of current emissions. This paper provides an original quantitative analysis of historic emissions by
None of the material in this paper has been published or is under consideration elsewhere.
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