In 2000 a very large and very profitable global oil company underwent a now infamous rebrand. ‘Beyond Petroleum’ may have been a marketeers’ dream, but is widely agreed to have been almost entirely meaningless when it came to actually shifting BP ‘beyond petroleum’, and into a truly renewable future. How could it, when for Big Oil their very business model, founded on expansion and shareholder payouts, is incompatible with the complete decarbonisation of our energy systems?

The five largest Big Livestock companies – JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America and Fonterra – may not have the name recognition of a Big Oil company like BP or Texaco. But from the perspective of a zero-carbon future, they are to all intents and purposes in the same boat.