These are the companies that generate the most emissions on the planet

BarcelonaEmissions must have fallen by 45% by 2030 if the Paris Agreement is to be met to ensure global warming is below 1.5 °C compared to pre-industrial temperatures. Although there are countries that have managed to reduce their emissions – such as the European Union – global emissions have increased in the last year. Part of the responsibility for this global trend lies with large companies, which, far from reducing emissions, have increased them and have come to represent 78.9% of emissions in 2023 – the last year for which there are records.

Specifically, 36 companies are responsible for half of CO₂ emissions worldwide, as concluded by the study by the think tank British Influence Map with data extracted by Carbon Majors 2023, a database on the world's leading oil, gas, coal and cement producers. At the top of this list are the hydrocarbon companies Aramco, Coal India, CHN Energy, NIOC and Jinneng Group, all of them publicly owned and responsible for 17.4% of emissions. As for privately owned companies, there are the American companies Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Total Energies and BP. In the list published by the think tank Also included is the Spanish company Repsol, responsible for 0.20% of global emissions and ranked 93rd among the most polluting companies in the world.

To put this into context, if Aramco – which produces 4.38% of global emissions, equivalent to 1.839 billion tonnes of CO₂ – were a country, it would be the fourth most polluting state behind only China, the United States and India. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil – which produces 1.28% of global emissions, equivalent to 562 million tonnes of CO₂ – would be responsible for the same emissions as the whole of Germany. “Despite global climate agreements, a small group of major fossil fuel producers are significantly increasing production and emissions. The research highlights the disproportionate impact these companies have on the climate crisis and supports efforts to enforce corporate responsibility,” said the Influence analyst.

Cement, a pollutant on the rise

In addition to the list of the most polluting companies, the study also warns that cement companies have increased their emissions by 6.5% in 2023. Holcim Group, Heidelberg Materials, UltraTech Cement and CRH are four of the five companies with the highest growth in emissions in the year analysed, all of them in the construction sector. Even so, cement producers are responsible for 4% of emissions, while coal produces 41% of emissions, oil 32% and gas 23%.