Exxon’s CEO Just Won: His Shareholders Rejected Climate Change Proposals

After a long battle to even get on the agenda for ExxonMobil’s 2016 Annual Meeting, the company’s shareholders on Wednesday voted against four initiatives to address climate change, even while the company is facing an investigation for its climate denial activities.

Investors were hoping to force Exxon to add a climate expert to its board, to enact a policy to avoid 2°C warming, to increase capital distributions (with the understanding that continued investment in assets likely to be stranded is not a good long-term strategy), and to report on the impact climate change policies worldwide to the company’s bottom line.

Each shareholder proposal failed.

“We know the path that Exxon is on, and the business strategy as it exists today, and as it existed for the last 50 years, is not a business strategy that is going to work in the 21st century,” Natasha Lamb, Arjuna Capital’s director of equity research and shareholder engagement, told ThinkProgress after the meeting.  “It is not in line with a low carbon scenario where we limit the burning of fossil fuels.”

Throughout the meeting, it was clear that Exxon’s idea of tackling climate change was not in line with the view of the vast majority of the world.

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