[whatever1]

No but they should at least not do buybacks and pay dividends, before cleaning up the mess that their production & product causes. This way an even competition field would form. Oil drilling is not a ludicrous business if you consider the actual costs for production (aka capturing carbon, decommissioning rigs, cleaning up production sites).

[bruce511]

Then surely you must blame investors?

Let's say Shell suspended all dividends indefinitely. What would your advice to your pension fund be? Sell Shell and buy BP? Would Shell's ability to function exist if they became a non-profit and a share price of 0?

Does Saudia-Arabia pay for the clean-up of say Australia? Does the US pay for the clean-up of Uraguay? Does the explorer, producer or consumer bear the clean-up responsibility?

[whatever1]

Investors do whatever is optimal for them. The duty of the market regulators is to ensure an even playing field, so that the investors are not deceived about the profitability of businesses.

Thankfully the US has a lot of say in the global oil supply and demand market. We already have rules & taxes in place for all the producers and importers of oil in the US (aka they need to buy certificates for blending renewable fuels mostly from US produced corn).

So yes, it is feasible, it is done already.