Former US vice president slams banks for oil profits

investmentnews.com:

Al Gore, the former U.S. vice president turned climate crusader, says Big Oil and the banks backing it still have huge financial incentives to stick with fossil fuels, even though their decision to do so is the leading cause of the climate crisis.

Bankers “are profiting hugely” from their role as lenders and advisers to fossil fuel companies, Gore said in an interview ahead of Climate Week, the annual gathering in New York of business and government leaders that occurs in conjunction with the UN General Assembly. Just as it’s “a bit unrealistic to expect fossil fuel companies to solve this crisis for us when they’re incentivized to do otherwise,” the business case for banks is the same, he said.

But the climate crisis is “a fossil fuel crisis” and that means the world needs to find a way to slash greenhouse gas emissions without assuming the oil industry will help, Gore said. 

The verdict comes as energy companies double down on their fossil fuel businesses and scale back ambitions for renewables, with Shell standing out as the latest example. In June, the company said it will devote an ever larger chunk of annual spending to oil and gas, a strategy that’s been dubbed “catastrophic” by climate activists but that coincided with a 10% bump in its share price.

And oil analysts are already suggesting that this week’s departure of BP Plc Chief Executive Bernard Looney, who had stood out among peers for his efforts to push the company toward a greener strategy, will be welcomed by BP investors.

Meanwhile with continued output cuts from OPEC+, the prospect of higher oil prices remains. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts say $100-a-barrel Brent crude is now “on the horizon again.”

The development suggests that Big Oil — which has