Research from April 2021 finds fossil fuels caused 8.7m deaths globally in 2018 – pollution from power plants, vehicles and other sources accounted for one in five of all deaths that year.

As oil prices crumble and major institutional investors are withdrawing their stakes in oil and gas, companies are coming under increasing pressure to steer their portfolios towards cleaner forms of energy.

Industry’s heavyweights are caught between sustaining fossil fuel-based businesses that generate the bulk of both their profits and the cash for dividends, while facing louder calls to increase investment in clean energy.

Some argue that if you lose part of your source of cash then you create an imbalance that means you are not able to finance your development in green energy.

“Even if BP, Total and Shell divest from oil and gas it does not change anything.” Selling assets to other producers who may be less mindful does little to help. State-owned oil companies, including the likes of Saudi Aramco or the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, “are not prepared to stop producing” and if Total cuts back then “Russian companies say, ‘all that is quite good for us’ because they will get the asset”. ~ FT

To meet ambitious climate pledges, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have become the dominant buyers of clean power have become the world’s biggest corporate purchasers of clean energy.

Energy is at the heart of the challenges we face to keep the global average temperature rise below 2°C. How have big industrialists switched their production during Covid-19 and will they stay active in their new sectors?