For the past 40 years the oil industry has been engaged in what the tobacco industry had been engaged in before it. The manufacture of doubt.

Eventually, the scientific evidence overwhelmed the spurious arguments and pseudo science generously sponsored by tobacco companies. They quietly refocussed in parts of the world where less informed consumers could continue to provide them profits through their deaths.

Doubt for the oil industry, however, was, in many ways, an easier sell. Firstly, the link between harm and product was less tangible. People using an enormous amount of oil did not die from using it. Second, the damage it did was to one of the most complex systems in the world, climate, so demonstrating the link was open to far more challenge. Third, the essential benefits of using it were manifest, not least in the internal combustion engine and the freedom it provided.

In addition to this the scale of the industry was and remains daunting. The world uses approximately 100m barrels of oil per day. The current price of oil is around $50 per barrel. This means oil sales every day are worth about $5bn, or $1.8trn per annum. This compares to the the roughly $800bn per annum for the tobacco industry.

All this means there are enormous levels of vested interest in oil production and comparable levels of resource to be applied to defend it. The application of the interest and resource to political influencing has been documented by many.

Jane Meyer notably charts the relationship between the “Dark Money” of oil wealth and direct political lobbying, and the more insidious funding of law makers supportive of the industry with enormous campaign donations via the Political Action Committee (PAC) system in the United States.

In America both Democrats and Republicans were targets of the oil industry but it certainly found a more welcome and eager advocate in the GOP. The logical conclusion of which was a president who was a climate change denier, withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, downgraded the Environmental Protection Agency and opened federal lands to carbon fuel explorations.

However, the growing traction of public concern is starting to impact the oil industry and other fossil fuel companies. It is now clear major changes needed, like the adoption of electric cars, are beginning to become real.

Uncertainty is the greatest fear of all major industries as has been made clear by the Brexit debacle in the UK where most businesses got to the point where they did not care whether we were “in” or “out” as long as it was clearly one thing or the other.

This craving for certainty partly explains the support for Joe Biden’s clear statements about climate change and the inevitable consequences for the motor industry from the industry itself. When they know there is a date for the abandonment of the internal combustion engine they can develop a strategy to achieve this. For all businesses, once the writing is on the wall, the job of the CEO is to read it.

Similarly, savvy investors can hear the change in the music and are starting to evaluate their strategies accordingly. Stranded assets, like oil that cannot be extracted if we are to avoid run away global warming, flash red light risk. What are the oil companies doing about it? How credible are the strategies?

Black Rock, one of the world’s largest asset manager’s with some $8.6trn of assets in management, has made clear it sees climate change as “investment risk”. Its Chairman and CEO Larry Fink states future investment decisions will be guided by how those seeking cash can demonstrate their business models are compatible with net zero emissions by 2050.

Much as the response of Boris Johnson to the pandemic has come to be seen as belated and lacking urgency at a critical time, so also, in the future, the response of the fossil fuel industry may come to be seen in a similar light. The timescales may be different, 12 months and 30 years, however so is the scale of change needed.

According to Bill McKibben’s book “Falter”, it was the oil industry itself which first identified burning fossil fuels as leading to changes in global climate back in 1977. After a brief period of transparency and cooperation, vested interest determined a revised approach of secrecy and “doubt manufacture” which has lasted for the best part of 40 years.

However, as scientific evidence piles up, real world weather starts to illustrate climate challenge and impacted populations begin to campaign the industry can see the “manufacturing of doubt” strategy has run its course. Having flipped once on the reality of climate change and it is not inconceivable, in fact, it is highly likely, the industry will flip again. Indeed there are all sorts of signs the change is happening.

As it happens the industry will no longer wish to support politicians who are swimming against the tide of history and creating uncertainty. They will want to develop new strategies within a clear national policy framework. Instead of impeding change to net zero they may well become powerful advocates for it. Ironically, this may be a rare case where oil lubricates a process more by its absence than its presence.

All of this adds to the current woes of the GOP in the United States. If the above has any relation to reality their wagon is firmly hitched to the wrong team. The “Dark Money” which has been flowing into their coffers may start to dry up as the wells are capped. What is more this may happen much quicker than they anticipate. We can live in hope!