![\"The](\"http:\/\/350.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/ACDimatatac-14.jpg\")
The demand for climate justice is the rallying call to hold big polluters accountable for their historic contributions to the climate crisis. Photo: AC Dimatatac<\/p><\/div>\n
It has always been said that while climate change affects everyone its impacts are not evenly distributed: race, gender, economic status determines how one would be able to cope and survive the impacts of a warming climate.<\/span><\/span><\/span> A number of risk indices <\/a>has consistently confirmed that less developed countries are most vulnerable and least prepared to cope with its adverse impacts. Ironically the most affected are the ones who are least responsible and have least benefitted from the massive burning of fossil fuels.<\/span><\/span><\/span> While it is true that all of us is responsible for global warming, it is also true that there is a differentiated responsibility \u00a0in terms of contributions to greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. On another level, the entities\/corporations that get coal, oil and gas out of the ground, and burn it to power\u00a0our present economies are responsible for the lions’ share of emissions.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Petitioners including former Climate Change Commissioner, Yeb Sano, was among those present in demanding climate liability. Photo: AC Dimatatac<\/p><\/div>\n Big polluters<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The primary driver of climate change is the cumulative (historic) emissions that have been pumped out the atmosphere since the industrial revolution.<\/span><\/span><\/span> In Carbon Majors,<\/a> a groundbreaking peer-reviewed study published in the scientific journal Climatic Change,<\/a> scientist, Richard Heede,<\/a> was able to conclude that just 90 carbon major entities \u2013 including the worlds’ largest fossil fuel companies \u2013 are responsible for an estimated 65% of all anthropogenic CO2 between 1751 and 2013. The 50 investor-owned carbon major companies contributed 315 Gt CO2e, equivalent to 21.72% of estimated global industrial emissions through 2010.<\/span><\/span><\/span> The 50 companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, are a subset of the 90 legal entities that have contributed the lion’s share of cumulative global CO2 and methane emissions in the earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/span><\/span><\/span> ![\"Petitioners](\"http:\/\/350.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/ACDimatatac-16.jpg\")