The world’s patience with the fossil fuel industry is wearing thin. In a stunning series of defeats for the oil industry, over the course of less than 24 hours, courtrooms and boardrooms turned on the executives at Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron. Among the fossil fuel industry’s largest institutional investors, concern is weighted far more heavily towards the potential destruction of long-term shareholder value than the destruction of the environment. Within days of the oil industry’s ‘Black Wednesday’ reckoning, credit rating agency Moody’s warned that the credit risk of major oil producers had increased. Oil industry pundits have warned that forcing Shell to cut its fossil fuel production would simply shift its barrels of oil to smaller, private oil companies or larger state-owned oil giants, with little impact on global emissions.

Source: The Guardian May 29, 2021 06:00 UTC