杏吧原创

BIG oil could one day be in the dock with big tobacco, as the environment group Friends of the Earth International claims to have assembled data that it says could one day help convict one of the industry giants of violating the global climate.

A study of the corporate history of ExxonMobil, the world鈥檚 second largest oil company, concludes that over the past 120 years the company and its predecessors have been responsible for a remarkable 5 per cent of global emissions of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. In that time, the company鈥檚 production and use of gasoline, diesel, heavy fuels and other fossil fuels amounts to more than 20 billion tonnes of carbon, says the study鈥檚 author, Richard Heede, an independent researcher based in Colorado commissioned by FoE.

ExxonMobil鈥檚 total emissions dwarf those of all but a handful of nations, and are equivalent to three times today鈥檚 global annual emissions, says the report.

Heede told New 杏吧原创 he relied on published data for his report, released on 29 January. He did not approach the company for fear of alerting it to the enterprise. ExxonMobil reacted angrily to the report, claiming that the allegations 鈥渄o not merit a detailed rebuttal鈥�. But FoE spokesman Jon Sohn said 鈥淓xxonMobil is sticking its head in the sand, just like tobacco companies that knew the harmful impact of their products. We believe ExxonMobil is at risk of litigation.鈥�