A new update of the Carbon Majors data makes one thing unmistakably clear: global fossil fuel emissions are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a very small group of producers, most of them state controlled.
In 2024, state-owned companies were responsible for 57 percent of global fossil CO₂ emissions. Just 32 companies accounted for half of all global fossil CO₂ emissions, down from 38 only five years ago. In other words, emissions are not only still rising, they are becoming more consolidated.
Fewer emitters, bigger impact
The latest analysis of the Carbon Majors database shows that emissions from the companies it tracks increased in every region in 2024 compared to 2023. Asian producers remain the largest contributors, responsible for nearly one third of global fossil CO₂ emissions covered by the database.
What stands out most is who dominates the top of the list. Seventeen of the top twenty emitters are state-controlled companies, highlighting how deeply climate action is entangled with geopolitics rather than market forces alone.
Climate politics meets fossil power
That political reality became visible at COP30. A coalition of more than 80 countries proposed a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, only to see it blocked by major producing states. The Carbon Majors data shows why.
The governments opposing the roadmap, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Iraq, Qatar and India, control 17 of the top 20 emitting producers. Together, those state-backed companies produced 38 percent of global fossil fuel and cement CO₂ emissions in 2024.
The remaining three top emitters were Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil. Notably, the United States did not attend COP30.
A long shadow over the climate
Carbon Majors is unique in tracking emissions from major oil, gas, coal and cement producers all the way back to 1854. With the 2024 update, the picture over time is even starker.
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, 70 percent of all fossil CO₂ emissions can be traced to just 178 producers. Over that period, only 22 companies were responsible for one third of global emissions.
Recent peer-reviewed studies using this data go beyond historical accounting. Attribution science now links specific corporate emissions to real-world impacts. Emissions traced to Carbon Majors companies made 213 heatwaves between 2000 and 2023 more likely and more intense, contributed to nearly half of current global warming, and drove about one third of observed sea-level rise.
The economic consequences are just as concrete. Researchers have attributed trillions of dollars in heat-related losses to individual companies, including an estimated $791 billion to $3.6 trillion in damages linked to Chevron alone between 1991 and 2020.
Accountability is catching up
As emissions data becomes more precise, accountability is no longer theoretical. Over the past year, Carbon Majors has become a key evidence base for courts and lawmakers.
In the United States, the data underpins new Climate Superfund laws in Vermont and New York, with similar proposals advancing in more than ten other states. Internationally, it played a role in the German climate case Lliuya v. RWE, where the court recognized that companies can, in principle, be held liable for climate damage based on attribution science.
The database was also cited by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which concluded that a small group of producers bears disproportionate responsibility for climate harm and that states have a duty to regulate corporate emissions on human rights grounds.
The bigger takeaway
The story the data tells is not just about emissions. It is about power. Climate change is no longer driven by millions of anonymous actors, but by a concentrated set of companies, mostly state-owned, operating behind political shields.
That concentration makes climate action harder. But it also makes responsibility clearer than ever.
