At a recent address to investors, the former BP chief executive Lord John Browne urged them to consider Aesop’s fable of the rider who stops feeding his horse in peacetime, only to find it lame when war comes.
The soldier in the analogy represented the companies who are pulling back on climate action, creating more long-term risk for all concerned as the ever-greater effects of the climate crisis loom.
“The story is a good reminder that if we want something to serve us longer, we need to take care of it constantly,” he said. “The hard truth is that we’ve done a poor job of reconciling corporate actions with the interests of society and the planet in a balanced way. Yet the urgent need to do so is undiminished.”