Climate change: Did we just witness the beginning of the end of Big Oil?

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The energy sector is notorious for booms and busts, but oil and gas stocks’ weighting in the S&P 500 has not been this low since as far back as 1979.

Investors have lost faith in oil companies, but it is not yet clear whether that is a permanent change caused by fear of increasing advances made by renewable-energy sources like wind, solar and electric batteries, or a temporary reluctance to invest caused by low oil prices.


Is the oil barrel half empty or half full? In the past week you had your pick of answers to choose from, and they were bookended nicely from the week’s beginning to its end.

The missile and drone attack on the largest Saudi Arabian oil-refining operation, which resulted in the largest single-day gain for crude oil ever on Monday, reminded a world that had gone a long time without a geopolitical shock how central the role of oil remains.

By Thursday, though, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — a man whose every latest decision is equated with doom for whoever is on the other side of the competition — announced his company would reach a goal of carbon neutrality by 2040, a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement goal. Bezos said 10,000 electric-delivery vehicles will be on the roads in just three years (2022) and 80% of Amazon will be operating on renewable energy by as early as 2024. By 2030 all of Amazon and 100,000 delivery trucks will be 100% powered by renewable energy. On the same day, Google announced it was investing $2 billion in new renewable-energy projects, a record corporate purchase.

One day later millions around the world took to the streets — including Amazon and Google employees — in a climate strike ahead of UN Climate Week. “The plain truth is that capitalism needs to evolve if humanity is going to survive,” Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario wrote on LinkedIn.

You could add the fact that Duke Energy — the largest utility in the U.S., which for years had resisted renewables — announced this week that it would reach an interim target of 50% carbon emission reductions by 2030, 100% by 2050. Or that Daimler, credited with inventing the modern gasoline engine, announced it will cease all research and development related to internal combustion in favor of electrification.

And that was just one week.


Much more (Includes video): https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/22/climate-change-did-we-just-witness-beginning-of-end-of-big-oil.html



Out of service fuel pumps are covered in plastic wrap and tarps at an Exxon Mobile gas station.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

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1. According to this video, the end of Big Oil starts in 2023