Big Oil Tussles With Teens, Tweets and Trust
The industry is under pressure from all sides to change its ways. Something might have to give.
Activist Greta Thunberg, oil’s new nemesis.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images North AmericaIn capital markets, trust boils down to – what else? – money. The more trusted you are, the more money investors will give you at a relatively low cost. Trust is in the eye of the beholder, of course. The U.S. government borrows fantastical sums at next to nothing, as you might expect. Then again, WeWork was also showered with cash despite a gaping wound of a P&L statement and multiple red flags.
Some of the world’s biggest oil companies were grappling with this squishy concept at a Monday gathering on the fringes of United Nations Week in New York. The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative is a group of 13 majors representing roughly a third of global oil and gas production. Founded in 2014, it aims to provide a reasonably unified industry response to climate change, with a particular focus on such things as reducing methane emissions and encouraging carbon capture technologies.