Environmental groups are vowing to increase the pressure on Exxon Mobil and its allies, despite a string of defeats Wednesday.
Shareholders at the country’s largest oil company rejected a number of resolutions to make climate change part of the company’s business model.
The climate advocates say they won’t back down from the challenge, which they say now includes Exxon supporters in Congress looking to block them from pushing a global warming agenda.
“The recommendation by Exxon’s board to outright reject every single climate resolution from shareholders sends an incontestable signal to investors: it’s due time to divest from Exxon’s deception,” said May Boeve, executive director of the group 350.org, a leading proponent of the Keep it in the Ground campaign and movement for pension funds, schools and others to divest from investments in fossil fuels. Many scientists blame the greenhouse gases emitted from the burning of fossil fuels, such as crude oil and coal, for man-made climate change.
CEO Rex Tillerson said at the meeting that the company accepts the scientific findings that man-made climate change is happening. But “the reality is there is no alternative energy source known on the planet or available today to replace the prevalence of fossil fuels in the global economy,” he said. “The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not.”
Chevron shareholders also rejected several resolutions on climate change at the company’s annual meeting on Wednesday.
Boeve is also backing a move by Democratic state attorneys general to pressure Exxon Mobil to come clean on research it did decades ago on climate change, where it knew the threats but didn’t make them public.
“Exxon knew everything there was to know about climate change decades ago and chose to sow doubt instead of warning the rest of us,” Boeve said. “Today’s results reaffirm that Exxon will never turn from its deceptive and destructive ways.”
She noted that last week 13 members of the House science committee sent letters to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental groups, including 350.org, requesting all communications among the state attorneys, some of whom have subpoenaed Exxon, and the groups.
Opponents of the attorneys generals’ campaign say the committee members want to show that the effort is not based on science but on a political agenda. The letter campaign was led by Republican science committee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas.
“These letters are a brazen attempt to block our right to petition the government, chill our free speech and freedom of association, and deter others from joining the fight for climate justice,” Boeve said.
“Exxon and its allies in Congress are doing everything in their power to try to distract us from the fight for climate justice,” Boeve said. “The recommended rejection of shareholders’ climate resolutions today proved that the company’s executives are set on prioritizing profit and greed over our climate and communities.”
