A German think tank has named Australian mining giant BHP Billiton Limited (ASX:BHP) the world’s 20th biggest carbon polluter.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation placed BHP 20th on a list of 81 major carbon emitters published in its annual Carbon Majors Funding, Loss and Damage report.
America’s Chevron Texaco was placed at the top of the ladder accounting for 3.51 per cent of emissions, compared to BHP Billiton who account for 0.52 per cent.
Rounding out the top five are America’s Exxon Mobil, Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco, the UK’s BP and Russia’s Gazprom.
The think tank calls on the world’s big oil and gas companies to pay for what it describes as climate change loss and damage caused by their products.
A levy on fossil fuel extraction has been proposed by the report’s co-authors which if started at about $2 per tonne of CO2 could annually raise about $50 billion to give to those impacted by climate change.
BHP Billiton reported a net profit of $9.9 billion in the first half of the 2014 financial year.
