Is public attention a catalyst for fossil fuel companies?

We study the relationship between public policy and corporate profitability in the context of climate change. We use panel regressions on a sample of 25 S&P500 fossil fuel companies from 2004 to 2018. We show that public attention to climate issues can have a significant impact on financial performance of firms. Indeed, we observe that climate regulatory uncertainty, as well as the stringency of public environmental policies, do not have a significant impact on the ex-post profitability of the fossil fuel extractive companies in our sample, except when public attention to climate issues intensifies.