A major oil and gas conference in central London was blockaded by a protest against a top industry award given to the head of ExxonMobil, the oil company that is reported to have funded climate change denial.

Protesters blocked the entrance on Tuesday evening by glueing themselves to the doors at the Oil and Money conference at the Dorchester on Park Lane, which brings together the most senior executives in the industry. Signs on their backs read “Climate change is nothing to celebrate” and “You can ignore the science but you can’t ignore us”.

The target of the direct action was Rex Tillerson, recipient of the Petroleum Executive of the Year Award at the conference and the chair and CEO of Exxon, the world’s biggest oil company.

Financial records and correspondence emerged in July that show the firm funnelled more than £1.5m to US politicians and lobby groups that deny climate change and block efforts to tackle it – despite having formerly committed not to. Greenpeace estimates that ExxonMobil have spent almost £20m funding researchers and thinktanks that promote misinformation on climate change.

Protesters throw fake money during the Oil and Money demonstration. Photograph: Martin Watters

Since the revelations, Exxon has said it acknowledges the risks of climate change and has ceased to fund groups that promote denial.

Lorna Buky-Webster, from campaign group Divest London, which organised the protest, said: “We’re here to show the oil industry that there they have nothing to celebrate.

“When they should be putting their heads together to tackle the biggest threat to human civilisation that has ever existed, instead they are giving awards to people who have been sitting on knowledge about climate change and aggressively funding denialism.”

Tillerson was chosen for the award by industry peers for his “highly successful leadership of ExxonMobil, where he has further enhanced the company’s widely respected reputation for strong operational performance, financial discipline, project execution and technological innovation,” according to Thomas Wallin, vice president of research company Energy Intelligence, which convened the conference in co-operation with the New York Times.