OPINION: The battle over whether oil companies should “drill baby drill” to produce more oil and gas or opt for lower-risk gains from a greener agenda will move from the streets to the conference hall on Thursday.

In the hotseat is BP chief executive Bernard Looney, who faces a barrage of activist shareholder motions at the 2023 annual general meeting, amid mounting demands to speed up the group’s carbon emissions reduction actions.

Looney’s £10 million ($8 million) pay packet is under scrutiny, but most of the attention will be focused on a move by several powerful institutional investors to prevent the re-election of board chairman Helge Lund.