ExxonMobil loses a proxy fight with green investors

“THE STONE AGEBP did not end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of petroleum.” That battle cry animates critics of Big Oil, who dream of phasing out hydrocarbons in favour of cleaner fuels and technologies. Their is ExxonMobil, long the richest and mightiest of Western oil supermajors—and the most unrepentant in its defence of crude. Lee Raymond, a formidable former boss of the Texan titan, once told your correspondent to get out of his office after being challenged over his flagrant denial of climate science.Darren Woods, who currently does Mr Raymond’s old job, does not deny that climate change is real. And he must now contend with the biggest rebuke to the firm’s management in living memory. At his company’s shareholder meeting on May 26th a coalition of activist investors led by Engine No.1, a small hedge fund, managed to put at least to promote a lower-carbon strategy of the sort espoused by European supermajors such as , Royal Dutch Shell and Total. As went to press the fate of a third activist nominee had yet to be determined.