John Browne is used to being an oil industry contrarian. It’s 25 years since the former BP chief executive made the landmark speech to his alma mater at Stanford University in which he became the first leader from Big Oil to link hydrocarbon emissions and climate change. He was denounced by many in his trade. “I was told I had left the oil industry church; I hadn’t realised there was one,” he says drily.
Now Lord Browne of Madingley is at odds with his former peers again, agreeing with Rishi Sunak’s windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas operators to help fund a £15bn cost-of-living package for households. Current BP chief Bernard Looney’s handling of the public debate has been so clumsy that the tax is being called the “Looney levy”.
