Exxon, Chevron Reject Shareholder Measures on Climate Change Again

Sharp differences are emerging between U.S. oil majors and their European brethren on the issue of climate change, and Wednesday's shareholder meetings at ExxonMobil and Chevron underscored the divergence as they fought all climate-related shareholder proposals and came away largely victorious.

The stiff resistance from Exxon and Chevron came in contrast to recent annual meetings at BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil, where nearly identical climate-related shareholder resolutions passed almost unanimously after the three companies opted to support the measure instead of oppose it.

In the wake of the unprecedented climate votes in Europe, some hoped to see a shift in the U.S. too.  Exxon and Chevron executives, however, showed no sign of taking a more cooperative stance with shareholder groups worried about climate change.  At this year's Exxon meeting in Dallas, Chief Executive Rex Tillerson didn't mention climate change in his prepared remarks to shareholders, a change from previous years, one shareholder noted.

"How startling that the industry has taken a split on this," said Sister Pat Daly, who was at Exxon's meeting representing the Roman Catholic Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, N.J.   "But we're not going away."  Daly’s group co-sponsored a proposal asking the oil company to set company wide goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the ninth straight year. The measure failed, drawing support from less than 10 percent of the vote.

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