What BP’s soaring profits tell us about our dependence on oil

So much for those ‘stranded assets’ which former Bank of England governor Mark Carney and many others tried to warn us about. It wasn’t long ago that climate activists were urging the world to dump shares in oil companies, not just because we should want to punish them for climate change but because, they said, oil companies’ fortunes were on a downward trajectory as the world turned green. ‘The exposure of UK investors, including insurance companies, to these shifts is potentially huge,’ Carney said in 2015. ‘Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.’

But that’s not how it looked in BP’s boardroom this morning as it announced profits of £7.1 billion ($8.2 billion) in the third quarter. Many of those who warned of ‘stranded assets’ are now bleating that BP and others are profiteering at the expense of the public. Joe Biden, no less, has accused oil companies of ‘war profiteering’.