At a recent address to investors, the former BP chief executive Lord John Browne urged them to consider Aesop’s fable of the rider who stops feeding his horse in peacetime, only to find it lame when war comes. The soldier in the analogy represented the companies who are pulling back on climate action, creating more long-term risk for all concerned as the ever-greater effects of the climate crisis loom.
These challenges are transforming the way companies communicate about climate change. Talk of purpose has given way to pragmatism. More than two decades after Browne rebranded BP to “Beyond Petroleum”, oil and gas companies increasingly argue that they cannot cut their overall emissions from fossil fuels faster than the rest of society.