The Hot Potato of Climate Responsibility

For the past few weeks, France, Spain, Greece, Portugal and several other countries have been fighting devastating wildfires. More than 400,000 people have been evacuated in France and Spain alone (CNN, 2026). Two firefighters just died in Greece (Al Jazeera, 2026). And this is happening on the back of yet another summer of record-breaking heatwaves across Western Europe.

When I bring this up, or talk about becoming more environmentally conscious, I'm often met with the same reaction: “You're exaggerating. Individuals aren't the real problem. It's the big corporations, the billionaires in their private jets, the oil companies.”

They're not wrong. But they're also not fully right. And I want to explain why.

The “It's the Corporations” Argument

The most famous stat behind this argument comes from the 2017 Carbon Majors Report, which found that just 100 fossil fuel producers can be linked to 71% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 (CDP & Climate Accountability Institute, 2017).

It's a powerful number, and it's often used to say: “See? It's them. Not us.”

But here's the catch. That 71% refers to the emissions embedded in the fossil fuels these companies extract and sell—not the emissions they burn themselves. In fact, direct emissions from these companies' own operations account for only around 12% of the total (Heede, 2022, cited in PolitiFact). The rest comes from all of us burning the oil, gas, and coal they sell us.

In other words: those companies exist and grow because there's demand. Our demand.

Households Are a Bigger Piece of the Puzzle Than Most People Think

When researchers trace emissions through the full consumption chain—food, transport, housing, goods—the picture looks very different from the “just 100 companies” narrative.

A widely cited study found that household consumption is responsible for more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and between 50% and 80% of total land, material, and water use (Ivanova et al., 2016). Other estimates put that number closer to 72% (Hertwich & Peters, 2009).

So yes, corporations extract. But we consume. Both things are true.

Governments Have to Move First — But That's Not the Whole Story

I recently had this discussion with my parents, and they made a really fair point. They said the state has to create the infrastructure first, and then citizens can follow. Take a family with a child, where both parents work in different parts of the city and have to drop off the kid on the way. Sure, public transport is possible—but if it means waking up two hours earlier every day, that's not a solution, it's a punishment.

They're right. Governments have failed for decades to build the infrastructure that makes green choices easy: proper public transport, safe cycling lanes, well-insulated housing, flexible working policies, affordable renewable energy. Without that, you're asking people to make heroic sacrifices instead of normal choices.

But—and this is where I want to be honest—sometimes the solution is already there, and we don't take it. Not because it's impossible, but because it goes against what we like.

Not All Individual Actions Are Equal

A landmark study looked at 148 scenarios from 39 sources to figure out which individual actions actually reduce emissions the most in developed countries (Wynes & Nicholas, 2017). The findings were striking: a small number of actions dwarf everything else.

Going plant-based is roughly eight times more effective than switching your lightbulbs. Yet governments and schools spend a lot more time talking about lightbulbs than about meat. That's the “climate mitigation gap” Wynes and Nicholas are pointing to—the biggest individual levers are the ones we're least often told to pull.

The Beef Example (or: Why I'm Also a Hypocrite)

Beef, specifically, has a second and brutal problem: deforestation. In the Amazon, cattle ranching is responsible for around 80% of deforestation across all Amazon countries (Amazon Aid, 2022). In some regions like Rondônia, that figure rises to 87% (Silva et al., 2024). Trees are cut and burned to create pasture—often literally set on fire. So the fires we see in Brazil aren't unrelated to what ends up on our plates in Europe.

“But China and the US...”

My dad made the other classic point: even if Europe becomes fully green, if China, the US, and India don't follow, it's a drop in the ocean. And he added something that stings—Europe, which is trying hardest, is the region getting hit the most by these fires and heatwaves.

He's right about the scale. But the “China” part of the story is more complicated than the usual narrative suggests. China is actually the world's largest renewable energy market by a huge margin—it accounts for roughly half of global wind and solar capacity (Energy Institute, 2025), added around 300 GW of new wind and solar in 2026 alone, and its combined wind and solar capacity has just overtaken coal for the first time (China Electricity Council, 2026).

We Are All Responsible

The point of all of this isn't to pass the responsibility from one player to another like a hot potato. Governments, corporations, and citizens all bear responsibility, because we're all part of the same system.

Governments have to build the infrastructure that makes green choices easy, invest in renewable energy, and implement policies that incentivize sustainable practices. Corporations have to stop extracting and selling more fossil fuels than the planet can absorb. And we, as citizens, have two jobs: to vote and push for the policies that will force the first two, and to be honest about the choices we're already able to make and simply refuse to.

The wildfires burning across Europe right now are not an accident. They're the result of decades of everyone assuming it was someone else's job.

Including mine.

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