Equinor fossil fuel sales linked to 58,000 potential deaths

Joshi’s analysis, published for the non-profit Klimakultur, utilizes the 'mortality cost of carbon' framework developed by Columbia University economist Daniel Bressler. By multiplying Equinor's annual customer emissions—which reached 257.8 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent last year—by Bressler’s projection of 226 temperature-related excess deaths per megatonne, the human toll of the company's output becomes clear. When extending this methodology to all products sold by the firm since 2018, the cumulative impact rises to between 260,000 and 450,000 deaths.

While Joshi acknowledges the inherent uncertainty in assigning precise mortality figures to specific corporate emissions, he maintains that the scale of preventable loss remains undeniable. This data emerges as extreme heat continues to stress health systems across Europe; WHO regional director Hans Kluge recently reported that heat has claimed over 200,000 lives in the region over the past four years alone. Despite the evolving nature of climate-mortality modeling, the report highlights the increasingly direct link between corporate fossil fuel production and global public health crises.