BP’s renewables roll-back got the reception it deserved thanks to climate campaigners

Climate crisis campaigners turned up at the door of planet-burning company BP to call out the fossil fuel major’s predictably risible row-back on renewables, as it once again ramps up its oil and gas investment.

BP out with renewables, in with MORE planet-burning oil and gas

On February 26, BP slashed its investment in renewables. As Reuters reported:

BP cut planned annual investment in renewable energy businesses by more than $5 billion, from its previous forecast, to between $1.5 billion and $2 billion per year.

By contrast, the climate-wrecking corporation announced an annual increase in oil and gas spending. To the tune of $10bn, BP’s explosive investment in fossil fuels will surge its oil and gas production:

to between 2.3 million and 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2030. It pumped 2.36 million boepd in 2024.

BP’s CEO Murray Auchincloss said the “strategy reset” demonstrated the corporations “unwavering focus” on boosting shareholder profit.

However, the green energy snake-oil sales-merchant of climate doubt wasn’t about to get away with this without a fuss. At least, that was thanks to climate campaigners pitching up with placards outside BP’s HQ in London.

‘BP’s greed’ is setting fire to climate targets and the planet

Campaigners from Fossil Free London were joined by a coalition of climate groups. This included anti-fossil fuel activists from Weald Action Group. Last year, on behalf of the group, campaigner Sarah Finch famously took on UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) in a groundbreaking case that set a vital new precedent and potential death blow to the UK industry around their downstream emissions.

After BPs announcement, the groups gathered outside the climate-wrecking corporation’s London HQ in St James’s Square on Wednesday evening:

BREAKING: We’re outside BP’s HQ because they’ve just announced they will be ditching their green pledges and our lives, in favour of short term profits from expanding for even more OIL and GAS.

Big Oil is killing us!!

BP’s greed is literally setting fire to our only home. pic.twitter.com/ZPT6rBRkBY

— Fossil Free London (@fossilfreeLDN) February 26, 2025

Campaigners held a banner reading “Big Oil is Killing Us” while chanting “Who kills? BP kills!”:

Protesters drew a link between BPs fossil fuel profiteering and the climate crisis impacts that have been hitting communities this year already. Mudslides have devastated Mayotte, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, and communities in Australia, Brazil, and South Africa suffered extreme flash flooding:

BPs announcement came just weeks after the hottest January on record, where wildfires ravaged California. One campaigner called out BP’s complicity in the Los Angeles loss of life to the infernos that tore across the US city:

BP renewables backtracking: not the first time…

Of course, BP reneging on its renewables investment was only to be expected. Big Oil’s profit golden-boy wasn’t going to grow a green energy conscience and stop pumping out the petroleum.

After all, this isn’t the first time the company has ditched its renewables arm. In the 2000s, the oil and gas giant suddenly seemed to manifest a moral compass – sort of. It was out with the old British colonial corporate brand legacy, in with the swanky millennial bug in the Big Oil system that was ‘Beyond Petroleum’. Needless to say, this image didn’t exactly last long. It quickly dumped its renewables rebrand when it got in deep water – quite literally with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill that took the sheen off its slimy PR stunt.

Honourable mention should also go to the personal climate culpability coinage con that is ‘carbon footprints’. Also the brainchild of BP, its slick blame-game did plenty to murky the waters of fossil fuel companies’ role in fueling the climate crisis as well.

‘Chasing short term profit’ at the expense of communities everywhere

Climate activists have been warning people for years that once a fossil fuel corporate capitalist, always a fossil fuel corporate capitalist. Once again, BP has only proven this point to be painfully obviously the case.

To sum up: we can’t trust the same colonial forces that flung the planet into this mess, to fix it. Climate campaigners outside BP HQ highlighted why relying on fossil fuel companies to save the planet is a fool’s errand.

Campaigner with Fossil Free London Robin Wells said:

The reality behind this oily money that BP is hellbent on creating is written in skulls and bones. The climate crisis is the greatest threat to society and human survival that humanity has ever known. From Valencia to Pakistan, the activities of these climate criminals will kill us. They must be regulated, they must be forced to pay up, they must be stopped.

Weald Climate Action Group protester Lorraine added:

BP’s decisions today to double down on its oil and gas productions and abandon its already weak renewable commitments is nothing short of reckless. They are, yet again, chasing short term profits at the expense of the future of our planet. Communities across the globe are already suffering the catastrophic consequences of fossil fuel expansion. We will not stand by while BP accelerates the climate crisis in the name of corporate greed.

Featured image and additional images via Fossil Free London