US and European institutional investors worth $700bn led a charge on Wednesday to oust an Exxon board member for “inaction” on climate change.

F&C Management, which manages $201bn in assets and owns 2.6m shares of ExxonMobil stock, and two dozen other leading institutional investors said they were withholding support for Michael Boskin due to his repeated refusals to meet them over its controversial climate strategy. Prof Boskin chairs the public issues committee of the world’s biggest listed oil company and is up for reappointment at its annual meeting at the end of this month.