{"id":703058,"date":"2026-09-23T20:46:39","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/703058\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T20:46:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T20:46:39","slug":"178-fossil-fuel-giants-have-already-locked-in-centuries-of-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/703058\/","title":{"rendered":"178 Fossil Fuel Giants Have Already Locked In Centuries of Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The vast majority of planet-warming emissions come from just 178 oil, gas, and cement companies<\/a> known as the \u201ccarbon majors.\u201d Even if these companies stopped emitting tomorrow, the carbon they\u2019ve already spewed into the atmosphere will continue heating the planet for centuries to come.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to a study published<\/a> today in the journal PLOS Climate. As Earth\u2019s average temperature careens toward 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of warming<\/a> above pre-industrial levels, the findings underscore the urgent need to cut emissions from the carbon majors as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

A whopping 50% of these emissions were produced after 1986, when the relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming was already well established. That is \u201cunbelievable,\u201d lead author Dargan Frierson, an associate professor of atmospheric and climate science at the University of Washington, told Gizmodo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, to me, just shows that we didn\u2019t have to go down this route,\u201d Frierson said.<\/p>\n

Carbon majors cast a long shadow <\/p>\n

Unlike many other gases, carbon dioxide doesn\u2019t simply break down once it enters the atmosphere. CO2 molecules tend to linger until they are absorbed by the ocean, plants, or soil. This explains why fossil fuel emissions are rapidly accumulating in the atmosphere; humans are releasing CO2 much faster than Earth\u2019s natural systems can absorb it.<\/p>\n

Numerous studies have estimated how much warming could result from future emissions scenarios, but it\u2019s also important to consider the lasting warming effect of past emissions. To that end, Frierson and his colleagues modeled the global climate through 2500 under various emissions scenarios, then ran simulations with and without emissions from the carbon majors through 2024.<\/p>\n

That data came from the Carbon Majors database, which tracks<\/a> emissions from all 178 companies\u2014including oil and gas giants such as Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron\u2014dating back to 1854. Since then, the carbon majors have emitted more than 1.5 trillion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.<\/p>\n

The results showed that their past emissions will continue to raise global temperatures and exacerbate extreme weather well into the future. In scenarios with lower future emissions, carbon majors account for a larger share of total global warming. In higher-emissions scenarios, future emissions account for a much larger share of warming than past emissions from carbon majors. However, the total amount of warming attributable to those companies\u2019 past emissions remains about the same.<\/p>\n

The researchers therefore conclude that, in addition to the climate damages those emissions have already caused, they may be responsible for calculable damages \u201cmany centuries into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

The path to a stable climate is clear <\/p>\n

To stabilize Earth\u2019s temperature, humanity\u2019s emissions need to fall to near zero, but stabilization won\u2019t happen as soon as we hit that target. Studies suggest<\/a> it could take decades to reverse the current warming trend and centuries for global temperatures to return to pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n

The higher Earth\u2019s temperature rises, the longer this reversal will take. That\u2019s why it\u2019s essential that humanity reduces its emissions as quickly as possible, and the carbon majors are the best place to start.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think a lot of people realize that we essentially have to stop burning fossil fuels in order to get the warming to stop,\u201d Frierson said. \u201cWe really have to take [emissions] very close to zero, and we\u2019re very far from that right now. Emissions have been setting records, they\u2019re not going on a downward track.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Frierson stresses the importance of policies designed to protect people from climate impacts we won\u2019t be able to avoid, even if the world begins to make better progress toward phasing out fossil fuels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The vast majority of planet-warming emissions come from just 178 oil, gas, and cement companies known as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[269],"tags":[2860,18,440,20441,4799,19,17,133],"class_list":["post-703058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-eire","tag-environment","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-global-warming","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117322316613925326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}