“As of December 29, US giants Exxon and Chevron had added 48 per cent and 40 per cent respectively in 2021. The duo have helped power global energy equity funds past many of the hundreds of US and European sustainable funds as defined by Morningstar, a data provider.”

[COMMENTARY]In my view, there are two reasons this is happening. First, still relatively high fossil-fuel demand yet with low investment in new replacement production that is forcing higher fossil-fuel prices. Secondly, it could be that divestment helped forced down the price of many fossil-fuel producer stocks to a point that higher fossil-fuel prices gave way to higher profits. Thus, their shares became attractive to many investors and sent their stock prices higher.
ESG shares underperform oil and gas in 2021, by Patrick Temple-West and Kristen Talman, December 30, 2021, Financial Times, UK.