Entangled in a web of climate change falsity entirely of its own weaving, Rio Tinto has lurched from its omnishambles of April to an outright fiasco in May.

At the company’s London annual meeting last month, chairman Simon Thompson called for “urgent, co-ordinated government action … to create incentives, such as carbon pricing, for industry to invest in new low-carbon technology”. Rio’s chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques convened a climate and water seminar 13 days later and studiously omitted to mention a carbon price – let alone its urgent necessity.