I’ve been seeing advertising around the city touting BP’s “green credentials” - paraphrased, the ad says “We committed to reducing our emissions to 1990 levels by 2010. We did it by 2001.”

I find these ads mildly offensive, because BP are still making massive profits - $4.21 billion in one quarter (and this is considered a “bad” quarter) - from their primary busines - selling petrol. Of course, this is one of the major contributors to global warming, so the company’s claims seemed to me to be a bit disingenuous, to say the least.

But, what is even worse still is that while BP are out touting their “green-ness”, they have paid $1.1 billion in fines in the US alone for environment-related violations.

BP are one of the most forward thinking of the Big Oil companies (not that that says much). They have announced an investment, globally, $1.8 billion over 3 years. Working this out another way, that equates to $0.15 billion per quarter - or around 3% of profit.

Don’t get me wrong: $1.8 billion is a big investment in anyone’s language, but it’s a tiny fraction compared to the damage their main business does.

Mostly, though, I reckon that BP should spend less money on advertising how green they are, and more money on actually doing the right thing…