BlackRock, the world’s largest investor, has joined an influential pressure group calling for the biggest polluters to reduce their emissions, after criticisms that it was undermining action addressing the climate crisis. The US investment firm has signed up to Climate Action 100+, a group of investors managing assets worth more than $35 trillion, that pressures fossil fuel producers and other companies responsible for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions to show how they will reduce carbon dioxide pollution. BlackRock, which manages assets worth $6.9 trillion including major oil producers such as BP, Shell and Exxon Mobil, has faced a mounting backlash for actions that activists said were preventing oil companies from being held to account. BlackRock has directly voted against multiple shareholder resolutions brought by Climate Action 100+. This included a resolution put to shareholders of BP that forced the British oil supermajor to describe how its strategy is consistent with the Paris climate accord.

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The Guardian