Saturday, January 09, 2016

Vermont Governor Urges State to Divest from Coal, Exxon

In his annual address, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Exxon’s history of alleged climate deception is grounds for the state to pull pension fund holdings.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin (right) at the international climate conference in Paris with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in December. (Credit: Gov. Jay Inslee, via Flickr)  Click to Enlarge.

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said on Thursday his state should take action against climate change this year by divesting public pension funds from coal and from oil giant ExxonMobil, because of its history of sowing doubt about climate change despite the company's own scientists having studied it.

Speaking at his annual State of the State address, Shumlin said, "The urgency for us to take every sensible action against climate change has never been greater."  He asked his legislature to send him a bill that would divest the state’s public pension funds from all coal stocks, as well as from stock in Exxon.

"Vermont should not wait to rid ourselves of ExxonMobil stock," he said.  His speech referenced the findings of an eight-month InsideClimate News investigation, which found that Exxon scientists had known about climate change and its dangers decades ago but the company did not share its findings with the public or shareholders.

"It has been clearly documented that since the 1980's, ExxonMobil's own scientists have long known about the dangers of global warming, and chose to conceal that from the public," Shumlin said in the speech.  "At the same time that they were building their oil rigs taller to account for rising sea levels, they were funding front groups of scientists to deny climate change is real.  This is a page right out of Big Tobacco, which for decades [hid] the health risks of their product as they were killing people."

Vermont Governor Urges State to Divest from Coal, Exxon

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