I’ll just put this item from UCS here for your interest:<\/p>\n
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/a><\/p>\n Study Finds Top Fossil Fuel Producers\u2019 Emissions Responsible for as Much as Half of Global Surface Temperature Increase, Roughly 30 Percent of Global Sea Level Rise<\/strong> WASHINGTON (September 7, 2017)\u2014A first-of-its-kind study published today in the scientific journal Climatic Change<\/a> links global climate changes to the product-related emissions of specific fossil fuel producers, including ExxonMobil and Chevron. Focusing on the largest gas, oil and coal producers and cement manufacturers, the study calculated the amount of sea level rise and global temperature increase resulting from the carbon dioxide and methane emissions from their products as well as their extraction and production processes.<\/p>\n The study quantified climate change impacts of each company\u2019s carbon and methane emissions during two time periods: 1880 to 2010 and 1980 to 2010. By 1980, investor-owned fossil fuel companies were aware of the threat posed by their products and could have taken steps to reduce their risks and share them with their shareholders and the general public.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve known for a long time that fossil fuels are the largest contributor to climate change,\u201d said Brenda Ekwurzel, lead author and director of climate science at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). \u201cWhat\u2019s new here is that we\u2019ve verified just how much specific companies\u2019 products have caused the Earth to warm and the seas to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n The study builds on a landmark 2014 study by Richard Heede <\/a>of the Climate Accountability Institute, one of the co-authors of the study published today. Heede\u2019s study, which also was published in Climatic Change, determined the amount of carbon dioxide and methane emissions that resulted from the burning of products sold by the 90 largest investor- and state-owned fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers.<\/p>\n Ekwurzel and her co-authors inputted Heede\u2019s 2014 data into a simple, well-established climate model that captures how the concentration of carbon emissions increases in the atmosphere, trapping heat and driving up global surface temperature and sea level. The model allowed Ekwurzel et al. to ascertain what happens when natural and human contributions to climate change, including those linked to the companies\u2019 products, are included or excluded.<\/p>\n The study found that:<\/p>\n \u201cUntil a decade or two ago, no corporation could be held accountable for the consequences of their products\u2019 emissions because we simply didn\u2019t know enough about what their impacts were,\u201d said Myles Allen, a study co-author and professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford in England. \u201cThis study provides a framework for linking fossil fuel companies\u2019 product-related emissions to a range of impacts, including increases in ocean acidification and deaths caused by heat waves, wildfires and other extreme weather-related events. We hope that the results of this study will inform policy and civil society debates over how best to hold major carbon producers accountable for their contributions to the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n The question of who is responsible for climate change and who should pay for its related costs has taken on growing urgency as climate impacts worsen and become costlier. In New York City alone, officials estimate that it will cost more than $19 billion to adapt to climate change. Globally, adaptation cost projections are equally astronomical. The U.N. Environment Programme estimates<\/a> that developing countries will need $140 billion to $300 billion annually by 2030 and $280 billion to $500 billion annually by 2050 to adapt.<\/p>\n The debate over responsibility for climate mitigation and adaptation has long focused on the \u201ccommon but differentiated responsibilities\u201d of nations, a framework used for the Paris climate negotiations. Attention has increasingly turned to non-state actors, particularly the major fossil fuel producers.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the start of the Industrial Revolution, very few people understood that carbon dioxide emissions progressively undermine the stability of the climate as they accumulate in the atmosphere, so there was nothing blameworthy about selling fossil fuels to those who wanted to buy them,\u201d said Henry Shue, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Oxford and author of a commentary on the ethical implications of the Ekwurzel et al. paper<\/a> that was published simultaneously in Climatic Change. \u201cBut circumstances have changed radically in light of evidence that a number of investor-owned companies have long understood the harm of their products, yet carried out a decades-long campaign to sow doubts about those harms in order to ensure fossil fuels would remain central to global energy production. Companies knowingly violated the most basic moral principle of \u2018do no harm,\u2019 and now they must remedy the harm they caused by paying damages and their proportion of adaptation costs.\u201d<\/p>\n Had ExxonMobil, for example, acted on its own scientists\u2019 research about the risks of its products, climate change likely would be far more manageable today.<\/p>\n \u201cFossil fuel companies could have taken any number of steps, such as investing in clean energy or carbon capture and storage, but many chose instead to spend millions of dollars to try to deceive the public about climate science to block sensible limits on carbon emissions,\u201d said Peter Frumhoff, a study co-author and director of science and policy at UCS. \u201cTaxpayers, especially those living in vulnerable coastal communities, should not have to bear the high costs of these companies\u2019 irresponsible decisions by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Ekwurzel et al.\u2019s study may inform approaches for juries and judges to calculate damages in such lawsuits as ones filed by two California counties and the city of Imperial Beach in July against 37 oil, gas and coal companies, claiming they should pay for damages from sea level rise. Likewise, the study should bolster investor campaigns to force fossil fuel companies to disclose their legal vulnerabilities and the risks that climate change poses to their finances and material assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ll just put this item from UCS here for your interest: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Study Finds Top Fossil Fuel Producers\u2019 Emissions Responsible for as Much as Half of Global Surface Temperature Increase, Roughly 30 Percent of Global Sea Level Rise Findings Provide New Data to Hold Companies Responsible for Climate Change WASHINGTON (September 7, 2017)\u2014A … Continue reading Top fossil fuel producers caused half of global warming, third of sea level rise<\/span>
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\nFindings Provide New Data to Hold Companies Responsible for Climate Change<\/em><\/p>\n<li>Emissions traced to the 90 largest carbon producers contributed approximately 57 percent?of the observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, nearly 50 percent of the rise in global average temperature, and around 30 percent of global sea level rise since 1880.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Emissions linked to 50 investor-owned carbon producers, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Peabody, Shell and Total, were responsible for roughly 16 percent of the global average temperature increase from 1880 to 2010, and around 11 percent of the global sea level rise during the same time frame.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Emissions tied to the same 50 companies from 1980 to 2010, a time when fossil fuel companies were aware their products were causing global warming, contributed approximately 10 percent of the global average temperature increase and about 4 percent sea level rise since 1880.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Emissions traced to 31 majority state-owned companies, including Coal India, Gazprom, Kuwait Petroleum, Pemex, Petroleos de Venezuela, National Iranian Oil Company and Saudi Aramco, were responsible for about 15 percent of the global temperature increase and approximately 7 percent of the sea level rise between 1880 and 2010.<\/li>\n<\/code><\/pre>\n