LondonCNN — 

BP (BP), Chevron (CVX), ExxonMobil, Shell and Total (TOT)Energies raked in a record $199.3 billion in profits in 2022, benefiting from the surge in oil and gas prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

TotalEnergies capped off the historic series of earnings Wednesday when it reported annual profit of $36.2 billion, more than double the previous year’s earnings.

This extraordinary increase in profits has been replicated across the other Western energy giants, and shareholders have been rewarded with enormous windfalls.

But the flood of cash has not delivered a commensurate boom in renewable energy investments, despite clear evidence that the world needs to move much faster with efforts to address the climate crisis.

The record-setting results mark a dramatic turnaround for a sector that suffered brutal losses and slashed shareholder payouts in 2020, when pandemic lockdowns sharply reduced demand for energy and oil prices collapsed. The reversal of fortunes has been almost entirely due to oil and gas prices roaring back as economies reopened and then going into overdrive following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February.

The scale of the gains by oil companies is generating fresh scrutiny of their investments in renewable energy and of the prices they charge their customers. It has also led governments in Europe to impose windfall taxes to raise the money needed to help households struggling with high energy bills.

But the additional tax charges — which ExxonMobil, for its part, is challenging in court — and investments in new sources of energy pale in comparison with the sum the world’s five biggest private sector oil and gas companies handed to shareholders: the bounty exceeded $100 billion for 2022.

“It’s been a spectacular year for shareholder distributions,” said Tom Ellacott, senior vice president for corporate research at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy.