Forcing the world's big publicly-traded oil companies to go green won't save the planet from the impact of the climate crisis.
Sure, they’re perfect targets for anger. They’re huge companies and household names. Their logos are on filling stations around the world. They pump millions of barrels of crude out of the ground every day, shipping it in vast tankers and processing it in sprawling complexes of pipes and tanks emitting clouds of who-knows-what into the atmosphere.
Of course they need to eliminate their own greenhouse gas emissions and tackle, or offset, those caused by the burning of the fuels they produce. And they need to use their know-how and deep pockets to help with the green transition. But focusing on a handful of companies that pump about 10% of the crude oil produced on the planet every day isn’t going to reverse the rise in global carbon dioxide emissions alone. Nor those of methane, which has a greater warming effect in the short term.