Conclusions The five global oil majors have invested over $1Bn since the Paris Agreement on misleading climate lobbying and branding activities. The overriding intention and net result of these efforts has been to stall binding and increasingly crucial policy designed to implement the Agreement by national governments. Clearly the companies deem such spending necessary to preserve their business models. In a speech to an industry-wide conference in March 2018, Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden noted the challenges of climate change, stating there is “no other issue with the potential to disrupt our industry on such a deep and fundamental level”. Yet in November 2018, at another oil industry conference, he acknowledged that recent headlines generated around Shell’s investments in low carbon energy were misleading and that it was wrong to think they had gone “soft on oil and gas”. The issue for Shell and its oil major peers is one of credibility and increasing disconnect on climate. Most glaring is the gap between their seemingly positive statements on climate change and the often directly oppositional actions of their lobbying, both directly and through highly effective trade associations. Second is the disconnect between these seemingly positive statements, the companies’ actual low carbon investments, and the growing consensus of the scientific community, non-fossilfuel business sectors, shareholders and civil society more broadly on the urgency of action needed on climate. The oil sector’s climate branding is increasingly sounding hollow and disingenuous. It is likely that the IPCC’s groundbreaking 2018 report on limiting warming to 1.5oC will be a watershed moment for the fossil fuel industry. The IPCC notes limiting warming to 1.5oC will require a “rapid escalation in the scale and pace of transition” of energy systems, “particularly in the next 10-20 years” including renewable energy and electric transport. It further notes such an unprecedented transition would necessarily require “public sector interventions”. It appears almost inevitable that these changes would be accompanied by limitations on oil and gas usage in this time frame. Oil major messaging on climate with its focus on market-driven solutions (often involving commercially unproven technology), low carbon investments dwarfed by fossil fuel capex budgets and incremental operational improvements are increasing seen as attempts to distract from sciencebased reality and stall real progress. It is highly probable they will find it increasingly hard to pursue this manner of lobbying and branding strategy into the future without significant push back from emerging pressures – shareholders, the media, the public and potential court plaintiffs. These pressures could feasibly catalyze what the sector has been fearing and suppressing for decades: meaningful and binding regulations on their operations in line with what is needed to address one of the most important challenges faced by humanity. 20 InfluenceMap March 2019