earth science

List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions

List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions rather than just read about it. In short: This article is a list of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. the greenhouse gas emissions from companies, activities, and countries on Earth which cause climate change. The relevant greenhouse gases are mainly: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the fluorinated gases bromofluorocarbon, chlorofluorocarbon, hydrochlorofluorocarbon, hydrofluorocarbon, nitrogen trifluoride, perfluorocarbons…

Key takeaways

List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

This article is a list of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. the greenhouse gas emissions from companies, activities, and countries on Earth which cause climate change. The relevant greenhouse gases are mainly: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and the fluorinated gases bromofluorocarbon, chlorofluorocarbon, hydrochlorofluorocarbon, hydrofluorocarbon, nitrogen trifluoride, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. The extraction and subsequent use of fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, as a fuel source, is the largest contributor to global warming.

Carbon dioxide

Countries

During June of 2023, with 12,705 million tonnes CO2 equivalent produced, China is the largest emitter; United States is second with 6,001, India 3,394, EU (which is 27 countries) 3,383, Russia 2,476, Japan 1,166, Brazil 1,057, Indonesia 1,002, Iran 893, and Canada 736.

Scope 1+3 emissions, cumulative of the years 1988 - 2015, from fossil fuel extraction

This section uses data from a climate accountability report of Heede of the Carbon Accountability Institute, and van Der Vlugt and Griffin of the Carbon Disclosure Project. While data of emissions "Direct operational" and indirectly caused from the companies surveyed were indicated by the CDP, requests for data which were ignored by companies and emissions resulting from the use of products originating with companies were included as estimates by the researchers. The data used by the CDP scientists is a composite of quantities of emissions as described via the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (GHG): Scope 1 and Scope 3 emissions (not including Scope 2) - these three being all the possible Scope-emission types. 1 is direct emissions sources from a companies owned or possessed resources, 3 is indirect sources subsequential from production activities; these are divided by GHG Protocol Corporate Standard into types: upstream and downstream, and 15 categories. Scope 3 emissions are thought to be approximately 90% of the total from any company and result from the combustion of coal, and, or, oil, and, or, gas during the conversion of these into energy i.e. as fuel; which is categorized as a downstream. The relevant tables below have a ranking of 20 industrial greenhouse gas emitters from 1988 to 2015 from the Carbon Majors Database (CDP) report, a 10 July 2017 dataset of GtCO2e. The table below shows the total combined (cumulative) emissions as a percentage of global emissions. Oil and gas production data was obtained from annual reports from company websites and the SEC (2016). For some state owned enterprises, data was sourced from the 'Oil & Gas Journal' (1986-2016) or is estimated from national statistics (EIA 2017, BP 2016, and OPEC 2016):

All cause 1+3 cumulative emissions The Guardian newspaper (England, Britain) and Acciona (bracketed); both citing CDP:

Scope 3 Scope 3 emissions are thought to be approximately 90% of the total from any company (Scope 1) and result from fuel combustion.

Vehicle emissions

Pickup trucks were found to produce the most emissions in a group of vehicles including SUVs and cars, in a survey reported January 2022. Excluding pickup trucks, the most polluting car type surveyed 2017 is the 2011 - 2020 Jeep Grand Cherokee which creates 372 grams per kilometre from the exhaust pipe, the 2007 - 2014 Audi R8 creates 346, thirdly the Chevrolet Camaro 335, the tenth most polluting, the Porsche Macan creates 291.

Largest sources carbon dioxide (Scope 1) This part details most CO2 emissions for the year 2021 using Climate TRACE:

Largest point source (Scope 1) This section details production sites at single locations where the most pollution exists or existed in the recent past. During March 2020, Secunda CTL, owned by Sasol, a synthetic fuel and chemicals from coal plant in Secunda, South Africa, was the producer of the single most emissions, at 56.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. The Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE) of the Government of South Africa determined Sasol has until 1 April 2025 to comply with the legal limits for emissions, as described by the Air Quality Act 2004:Part 3; 12; Category 3. Sasol's pledge to reduce its emissions from the plant by 10% by 2030 was reported during November 2020, during 2023 it was reported that this was amended to 30%. As of 2021, the gas-fired power plant which emits the most was the Taichung Power Station in Taiwan, at 34.19 million tonnes CO2.

Methane

Sources of anthropogenic production are in the majority:

natural gas, petroleum, and coal mining: the United States produced the most recent emissions from oil and gas sources at least prior to April 2023. livestock production systems; manure and enteric fermentation, waste deposit sites: landfills waste water

Carbon bomb projects (new extractions) A carbon bomb, or climate bomb, is any new extraction of hydrocarbons from underground whose potential greenhouse gas emissions exceed 1 billion tonnes of CO2 worldwide. In 2022, a study showed that there are 425 fossil fuel extraction projects (coal, oil and gas) with potential CO2 emissions of more than 1 billion tonnes worldwide. The potential emissions from these projects are twice the 1.5°C carbon budget of the Paris Agreement. According to these researchers, defusing carbon bombs should be a priority for climate change mitigation policy. According to the same study, the Global Energy Monitor and "Banking on Climate Chaos" associations, between 2016 and 2022, the main backers of these climate bombs are the American banks JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America. Between 2020 and 2022, at least twenty new "climate bombs" went into operation, reveals an international journalistic investigation. In this survey, France's TotalEnergies is cited as the second most responsible group for fossil mega-fields, with a presence at 23 major hydrocarbon extraction sites. In November 2023, China's China Energy will lead the ranking and Saudi Aramco of Saudi Arabia will be third.

Examples Exploitation of new coal mines in Australia. Exploiting Canada's oil sands. Shale gas extraction, for instance in Permian basin in Texas

See also Climate TRACE Non-linear effects Non-methane volatile organic compound

References

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions

In research: List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Climate change, Environmental disasters, Greenhouse gas emissions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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Frequently asked questions

What is List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions in simple terms?

Why does List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

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It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of locations and entities by greenhouse gas emissions.