On Friday night, the Royal Opera House will stage a BP-sponsored performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, transmitted across the UK on “big screens” emblazoned with the oil company’s logo. By associating itself with high-profile cultural events such as these, BP buys a social legitimacy that it does not deserve, and attempts to draw a veil over its environmentally destructive projects and corporate crimes around the world.
We are composers, musicians and music researchers who care passionately about classical music, the performing arts and the environment, and believe that the BP logo represents a stain on the Royal Opera House’s international reputation. BP was forced to pay the largest criminal fine in history of $4.5bn for its role in causing the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, despite the warnings of climate scientists, BP pursues new sources of oil in the fragile Arctic, and in the Canadian tar sands, where it tramples the rights of indigenous peoples. Its core business activities and political lobbying are actively pushing us towards a future with a global temperature increase well in excess of 2C.
Related: BP set to pay largest environmental fine in US history for Gulf oil spill