Amid growing concerns about climate change, activists, shareholders, and many investors have started to see oil companies as the next ‘Big Tobacco’ set of toxic stocks because of Big Oil’s continued investment into fossil fuel-derived energy. Despite climate activists’ demands that oil firms ‘leave it in the ground’, Big Oil are not getting out of their core oil and gas business, nor they are planning to do so, because the world will continue to need oil and gas in the foreseeable future, Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden says . Yet, oil companies could take some steps to alleviate investor and shareholder pressure to start acknowledging climate change risks and set emission reduction targets, by learning from the experience of another demonized sector—Big Tobacco–according to RBC analyst Biraj Borkhataria. Although Big Oil and Big Tobacco are different enough, oil firms can take a leaf or two out of the […]