by Mike Bastasch
Oil giant ExxonMobil has capitulated to activist shareholders and will begin issuing detailed reports on potential risks “climate change policies” pose to its business operations.
“These enhancements will include energy demand sensitivities, implications of two degree Celsius scenarios, and positioning for a lower-carbon future,” Exxon wrote in a federal regulatory filing submitted Monday night.
Exxon has faced increasing pressure over the years to “disclose” the risks its business operations could face because of global warming and future regulatory changes to phase out fossil fuels.
Exxon already issued projections on how global warming and future regulations could affect their business, but activists were unsatisfied. Opponents of the measure, however, say the company was foolish to give in.
“I began telling ExxonMobil management in 2008 that trying to appease climate-activists-dressed-as-investors was a fool’s errand,” Steve Milloy, publisher of the site JunkScience.com and Exxon shareholder, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Milloy said “fake investor” activists aren’t interested in benefiting other investors by maximizing profits, but instead “they want to use Exxon as a means of advancing their left-wing social and political agenda,” he said.
Exxon executives initially opposed shareholder measures, but activists managed to gather enough votes in May to pass a global warming reporting measure. The measure is non-binding but represents a big political win for activists.
The measure asked Exxon potential risks of “technology changes and from climate change policies such as the 2015 accord aiming to keep average global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius,” Reuters reported in May.
Milloy argued against the measure at the shareholders meeting, but he was unsuccessful in convincing investors to vote down the measure as they had done so many times in the past.
The New York State Common Retirement Fund, the country’s third-largest public pension plan, submitted the measure at Exxon’s annual shareholder meeting earlier this year. The Vanguard Group and BlackRock also supported efforts to disclose climate regulation risks.
“The notion that Exxon could appease the activists by merely issuing some report on climate is a grossly incompetent reading of the threat presented,” Milloy said.
Milloy filed a shareholder measure this week. The measure asks Exxon to compile a report on whether or not Exxon’s voluntary environmental programs “are producing actual and meaningful benefits to shareholders, the public health and the environment, including global climate,” according to a copy Milloy shared with TheDCNF.
Environmentalists have made a concerted effort in recent years to “decarbonize” the world through investor activism.
Part of the effort involves convincing financial institutions to stop investing in fossil fuel projects. California’s public pension fund divested from coal holdings, missing out on a recent boom in coal stocks.
Likewise, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is considering divesting from oil and gas, despite the fund being supported by the country’s vast oil reserves.
Ceres, an environmental group, celebrated Exxon’s decision. Cere’s Andrew Logan said “shareholders have won a major victory,” adding Exxon will have to “seriously reckon with the potential risks of a low-carbon transition.”
“Of course, the company could go about the analysis requested by the shareholder proposal in a way that illuminates the risks for investors, or it could choose to do so in a way that obscures,” Logan told Axios on Tuesday.
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Exxon cannot be serious. Responding to “potential risks” of climate change policies is pouring money down a rabbit hole chasing the fantasy of day. The absurdity of this whole issue is the premise that climate science is settled.
Physicists now posit that nature cannot be modeled with Newtonian physics but might be modeled with quantum physics. In December 2016, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) reported results from the CLOUD experiment that are potentially game changing. The implications of the results are that CO2 does not play a significant role in global warming, climate models used by the IPCC to estimate future temperatures are too high, and the models should be redone. The CERN models are driven by quantum physics.
In 1992, United Nations’ bureaucrats distorted the scientific message of climate change to further the redistribution of wealth under the guise of an illusionary threat of runaway global warming. A perverted interpretation of Principle 15 from UN 1992 Rio Declaration led to the one percent solution. The EPA interpreted Principle 15 to mean that, if one can hypothesize a one percent possibility of an environmental threat, measures to respond to the perceived threat were justified. Compelling scientific evidence of a threat of serious damage became a moot point. The adoption of this premise was the beginning of agenda-driven science. Exxon is making a huge mistake to get on the EPA train just before Trump derails it. Where is Tillerson when Exxon needs him?
It truly boggles the mind, the idea that companies need to disclose possible risk to their business in the future, as if they have a crystal ball that allows them to see the future. Anyhow, last I checked it was up to the investor themselves to determine the risk of their investments. How about the “risk” to McDonald’s of more and more people becoming vegetarians? Once you go down that road, there is no end to it. It’s absurd.
I’m going to take a wild guess, here, and say that you don’t work in the insurance industry….
This is a generalization. ExxonMobil’s financial statements needed to go far enough in disclosing future liabilities. Not doing say can be argued to be a failure by management and the auditors.
Unless there has been a Second Coming, no one on the planet can foresee the future liabilities caused by climate change. The chance of liabilities is not more or less than the chance of advantages from the climate of the future. The idea that actuarial science can be applied to the results of climate models is absurd .
It’s called company law in almost all developed countries Bruce and while it may come as a surprise to you it’s normal. All public companies will has statements on the company exposure and risks mitigation to enviromental disasters and computer hacking etc as well.
But the reality is that, according to the paleoclimate record and the work that has been done with models, the climate change we have been experieicnig is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind, even Exxon, has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. So Exxon can either shut down opperations entirely or they can produce to the maximum and what they will do will have no effect on climate.
If you think that the burning of fossil fuels is bad then stop making use of all goods and services that involve fossil fuels. Virtually all food bought at stores these days is at one time moved by truck so stop buying and eating it. Most clothing involves materials that are harvested and transported by equipement that makes use of fossil fuels so stop wearing clothes. Most buildings and other structures have been build with materials that have involved the use of fossil fuels so stay out of all buildings. Manmade surfaces to include asphault, concrete, wood, and even gravel involve the use of fossil fuels so stay off such surfaces. Most water system involve the use of fossil fuels so do not make use of water unless you get the water yourself from a natural body of water. Remember that it is your money that keeps the fossil fuel companies in business. Your own body generates greenhouse gases, CO2, H2O and CH2 that it adds to the atmosphere. If these gasses are bad then stop adding them to the atmosphere.
The largest amount of the so called greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere is H2O evaporated from exposed damp surfaces. If the so called greenhouse gases are bad for our climate then cover all damp surfaces with a non-biodegradeable water proof material that is not processed or transported by any means that involves the use of fossil fuels.
So if Exxon is really that concerned about greenhouse gases, they should immediately cease all operations and disband the company.
+10 yet again 🙂
1.) You may care to go look up company law in your country .. in most countries if a company director did that you would get jailed. It will come under the section reasons for Dissolving a company.
2.) The statement they are making says nothing about climate change itself and they don’t even say they believe it or not. It simply says that things may be imposed on the market because of world governments acting on climate change and it may effect their trading.
The sole end game of the exercise is to steer massive amounts of money from the “wrong” hands to the “right” hands. Like Van Jones said, “Take the money from the people creating the problem and give it to the people solving the problem.” And Obama, “Not thousands and millions, but billions and trillions.”
Exxon’s caving is a good first step.
Next, every human urban structure should be the location of cultivated honey bees on its rooftop.
Clearly, we are moving in the right direction. /sarc/
Tigers aren’t especially carnivores ya kno
Like lions also and how *they* came to be King of the Jungle – and all that jazz.
Because lions ate the same thing as real (people) Kings and that is how rich people (Kings and their kind) came to get Gout.
From eating a Rich Diet, like the lions. (and tigers)
The only modern-day connection to diet and Gout is from a diet high in offal= livers, kidneys, brains, blood and not least, fat.
and bone marrow. =an Acquired Taste
So lions (and tigers) are like us in sharing the same diet and that why they became our friends.
We are all Lipivores
So where did the notion come from that we are Omnivores, Carnivores or even Herbivores come from?
Probably a drunk who got a fit-of-the-munchies sometime
Ain’t you glad that’s all sorted.
All we need to know is how we persuaded Tigers to go into our Tanks
(Do the adverts still say that?- “Put A Tiger In Your Tank”)
THis is fine, as long as every report comes out along the lines of “No risks whatsoever because your premise is a hoax.”
I just wrote this up for some fellow engineers on ExxonMobil and CO2 capture. Then saw this post on ExxonMobil. It is somewhat related in that money is being spent to change the image of ExxonMobil to being more green.
Several of us were talking this morning about Exxon having a commercial concerning removing CO2. How great the system was going to be. An engineer appears and talks about the wonderful systems that will be coming.
Some background. ExxonMobil has been the whipping dog for environmentalists. They are accused or not letting their stock holders know in the 1980s that their scientists had predicted that there could be global warming in the future. It went to court and while ExxonMobil won, the negative perception was planted. The environmentalists did not let a minor thing like a court settlement deter them in continuing to make accusations against ExxonMobil. So ExxonMobil want to appear to be doing great things to change the negative perception.
The one thing that stands out for all these systems is they are for natural gas plants. Natural gas combustion results in minor CO2 emissions. It is also a very clean gas so nasty stuff like ash, SO2, arsenic etc. are not present. So any CO2 removal systems would have a small minor tiny impact on CO2 emissions. The other little issue is you still have CO2 that is still CO2 so you have not eliminated it, just changed where it is located.
An ExxonMobil commercial shows all these ping pong balls representing CO2 falling out of the sky to demonstrate CO2 being removed. A more accurate picture would be showing a massive indoor stadium and dropping 20 ping pong balls from the ceiling. Not so dramatic.
Technology number 1 – Freezing it out. Yes you heard that right freezing it out. It is called controlled freeze zone. I am sure right out of the box it will prove economical.
http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/technology/carbon-capture-and-storage/controlled-freeze-zone/controlled-freeze-zone-technology
Technology number 2 – Using fuel cells to remove CO2 and safely pipe it underground. This is so good that the fuel cells will generate power that will boost the power plant production.
http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/technology/carbon-capture-and-storage/advanced-carbonate-fuel-cell-technology/advanced-carbonate-fuel-cell-technology
Looking greener all the time.
THE GORE EFFECT.
Perhaps not strictly on topic, but we are having a global warming gathering in Paris this week.
Yesterday the Forties pipeline was shut down due to a crack being detected not too far from President Trumps golf course in Aberdeenshire.
This pipeline transmits the crude and condensate output from 40 odd North Sea oil platforms., meaning all British sector fields are shut in.
This means that Scotland’s only oil refinery will not get any feedstock.
Meanwhile near Vienna an explosion at a gas handling plant has cut off the supply to Italy and several other East European countries in the midst of a freezing winter, causing Italy to declare a state of emergency.
Sadly there have been some casualties due to the explosion.
This conflab in Paris has had a Papal endorsement (blessing?) from MY Pope, telling them that we must disinvest and desist from all forms of evil fossil fuels.
Is this the Gore effect or is it the Francis effect?
I guess Exxon could employ a writer ( me me!) for half a day to write a report which could say any dam’ thing. Chuck it into the market place and allow the greenies to quarrel over it. As there’s no scientific consensus, no outcome will emerge of any interest.
Please go and read .. they don’t care one bit what climate change is all they are reporting on is trading conditions that may be imposed on them.
No. Me me. I could write reports over years. ):
This statement is a required statement with all publicly traded companies.
A) I agree that XOM could have stated that the science behind AGW is weak (at best) but the government mandates/rgulations can negatively affect XXOM’s business and therefore we are disclosing any items that have the potential to negatively affect the company’s business. That statement would satisfy the required disclosure.
B) XOM could had said that the company’s management has drunk the AGW kool-aid and that potential government regulations will definityly negatively affect the company’s future earnings. That statement would also satisfy the required disclosure.
That being said, either statement will have zero effect on the company’s earning and zero effect on the stock price. The investment market knows the statement is meaningless
Correct some company directors covering their backsides. ExxonMobil like all public companies will have a natural disaster, computer hacking and any number of other risk to business statements as well.
People could actually bother to read the notification they have to give it’s in the report
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/34088/000003408814000012/xom10k2013.htm
It’s a lot of noise about nothing by Econutts who think it actually means anything.
Thank you to Tom13 and LdB for a little rational thought about this.
Who runs Australia?
.BlackRock
.Vanguard
.State Street Global
.Fidelity Investments
.BNY Mellon Investment
.J.P. Morgan
Why not Exxon (about the same cap).
The new socialist ruling class, conquering from the inside.
They’re just getting started . . .
Australia now has the World’s most expensive electricity; more than Germany (excluding tax).
Another day, another stupid “Global warming is going to make Earth like Venus!” article. https://medium.com/@joshuashawnmichaelhehe/the-venusian-fate-of-humanity-daed12567af7
This is inevitable. The BIS have instructed Central Banks to do this, this gets passed on to commercial banks and insurance companies. Its all about generating investment for the elite with no risk because tax payers pick up the tab.
Its got nothing to do with ‘science’, climate change is a made up thing that is used to whip up support of the masses through PR and the green blob.
The result will be a few getting richer and the rest poorer and starved of energy.
Trump has put a few spokes in the wheel, but he is under attack from all quarters and these people have patience, he will go in 3 or 7 years, they have been planning this for decades.
Shame from a company that brought us the “Vail sea level curve”, which changed the subsurface petroleum exploration approach in the mid 70’s.
“542 Million Years of Sea Level Change: Exxon’s Sea Level Reconstruction”
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth107/node/890
What is the shame?
“……..implications of two degree Celsius scenarios, and positioning for a lower-carbon future.”
They were an oil company once and exploring and producing hydroCARBON deposits. It is a SHAME they have stopped looking (sarc).
everything CAGW is non-binding. this BBC radio program makes it clear everyone knows that. ridiculous ending with Malte Meinshausen, Senior Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, delighted that all is not lost, because wind power is now the cheapest energy source that humankind has available and solar PV is very cheap also, so greed and self-interest will kick in and save the world from CAGW. he does a couple of chuckles as he says it:
AUDIO: 26mins29secs: 12 Dec: BBC Discovery: Cheating the Atmosphere
All countries are supposed to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions but BBC environment correspondent, Matt McGrath, reveals there are gaping holes in national inventories. He uncovers serious failings in countries’ accounts of warming gases with many not reporting at all. There are disturbing signs that some banned warming chemicals, which are supposed to have been phased out completely, are once again on the rise. And evidence that worthless carbon credits are still being traded. Meanwhile scientists are growing increasingly frustrated by the refusal of countries to gather and share accurate data in the face of this planetary emergency
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvpfz
Exxon made a big mistake because these activists are pseudoscientists – they want to prescribe impossible means to Exxon profits. Stupidity annoys me and if there is abundant stupidity in climate science iit derives from a non-existent 2-degree (or whatever limit you set on n “allowable” maximum temperature. There is no science behind it but there is science we can use to understand the futility of it. We owe the knowledge of this fact to Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi who used a sixty one years long set of radiosonde observations from NOAA to put the atmospheric carbon dioxide effect into its place.These radiosonde records included global temperature measures (in degrees Celsius) as well as atmospheric carbon dioxide values (in ppm), and also other atmospheric data. An examination of this radiosonde record revealed that during these 61 years the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by a little over 20 percent. No surprise there, that has been observed and measured many times. But the second observation was a real surprise: despite tthe incessant propaganda about the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide. the was no global temperature increase. at all. This kills the activist claim that increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the air. It is a scientific observation that has to be scientifically analyzed and interpreted. It has been part of the peer-reviewed literature for the last six years but yet it is ignored completely. I have discovered no attempt to even question its validity. Their Modus Operandi seems to be to ignore any parts of published science literature and pretendExxon made a big mistake because these activists are pseudoscientists – they want to prescribe impossible means to Exxon profits. Stupidity annoys me and if there is abundant stupidity in climate science iit derives from a non-existent 2-degree (or whatever limit you set on n “allowable” maximum temperature. There is no science behind it But there is science we can use to understand the futility of it. We owe the knowledge of this fact to Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi who used a sixty one years long set of radiosonde observations from NOAA to put the atmospheric carbon dioxide effect into its place.These radiosonde records included global temperature measures (in degrees Celsius) as well as atmospheric carbon dioxide values (in ppm), and also other atmospheric data. An examination of this radiosonde record revealed that during these 61 years the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by a little over 20 percent. No surprise there, that has been observed and measured many times. But the second obbservation that dealt with temperature was a real surprise. It turned out that despite the incessant propaganda about the greenhouse effect of, carbon dioxide, temperature did not track the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These results were reported in peer-reviewed literature under the title “The stable stationary value of the earth’s global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness.” [See Energy & Environment 21(4):243-262 (2010)] A graphic from p. 246 of this paper was also presented as a poster display at the annual meeting of the EGU in Vienna in April 2011’retend . These results were reported in peer-reviewed literature under the title “The stablew stationary value of the earth’s global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness.” [See Energy & Environment 21(4):243-262 (2010)] A graphic from p. 246 of this paper was presented as a poster display at the annual meeting of AGU in Vienna in April 2011′
This is not the only such scientific malpractice I know of. In 2010 I wrote a paper proving that the observed Arctic warming that was twice as fast as IPCC predictions was not greenhouse warming but was caused by a rearrangement otf the North Atlantic flow pattern that dircted more of the Bulf Strream water flowing north along tje coast intothe Arctic Ocean.Six years later, total ignorance of this in the field. Tye conclusion that must be drawn is simple:Do not believe the climate predictions of “climate” sxientists.
Oh my what a surprise . What’s next a great big check to cure the planets fever ? If I was a shareholder
the management would be gone . Does Exxon really care is they collect a bit more climate guilt money for green lawyers and the government . Nah . I don’t remember Exxon adding scary global cooling stories to their notes .
I suspect somewhere some lawyer said that it would be cheaper just to issue a meaningless report than to fight it.
Cloud Peak — a coal company is down over 25% since Dec 2016 — Guess California made a good call
https://www.google.com/search?rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-ContextMenu&q=NYSE:CLD&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgecRoyi3w8sc9YSmdSWtOXmNU4-IKzsgvd80rySypFJLgYoOy-KR4uLj0c_UNzKtyDc3yeABrL73jOgAAAA&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNnMGo0IfYAhUP4GMKHT1nDGYQsRUIhwEwEg&biw=1680&bih=955
How can we understand Exxon’s position? It seems to go against the economic interests of Exon’s shareholders, to whom Exxon owes a fiduciary duty. They’re in the fossil fuels business, after all.
So this must be a BUSINESS decision. What makes BUSINESS sense for Exxon? (Presumably they’re not doing this to gain the indulgence of superstitious progressives. Exxon won’t enter renewable energy either, because they know it is not feasible.
The only evident rationale is that Exxon has all but conceded the transportation energy market to electric energy. So the only way it can redeem its business model (producing and selling fossil fuels to folks who burn them up) is to greatly increase its market share for natural gas sold to power generators.
But wait–coal is, in the long term, cheaper than gas. So, what to do? Get the Bully State to impose carbon regulations and make coal less competitive. so the Big Boys at Exxon are getting to work, selling the boogeyman of climate change. In other words, more rent-seeking behavior from Big Business.
Climate change is a false premise for regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Political leaders who advocate unwarranted taxes and regulations on fossil fuels will be seen as fools or knaves. Nature converts CO2 to limestone. Climate change may or may not be occurring, but is NOT caused by human fossil fuels use. Temperature changes cause changes in ambient CO2.
There is no empirical evidence that fossil fuels use affects climate. Likely and well-documented causes include sunspot cycles, earth/sun orbital changes, cosmic ray effects on clouds and tectonic plate activity. The further point here is that earth naturally recycles all carbon dioxide.
Fossil fuels emit only 3% of total CO2 emissions. 95% comes from rotting vegetation and other sources. All the ambient CO2 in the atmosphere is promptly converted in the oceans to calcite (limestone) and other carbonates, mostly through biological paths. CO2 + CaO => CaCO3 (exothermic). The conversion rate increases with increasing CO2 partial pressure. A dynamic equilibrium-seeking mechanism.
99.84% of all carbon on earth is already sequestered as sediments in earth’s crust. The lithosphere is a massive hungry carbon sink that converts ambient CO2 to carbonate almost as soon as it is emitted.
The Paris Treaty is now estimated to cost up to to $100 trillion — $13,333 per human being. Nearly two-thirds of humanity’s cumulative savings over history. And will not affect climate at all.
A modern coal power plant emits few air effluents except water vapor and carbon dioxide. Coal remains the lowest cost and most reliable source of electric energy, along with natural gas. Coal has always competed effectively with natural gas.
Coal & gas dominate electric energy generation because they are cheap. And coal remains the cheapest energy source. Illinois Basin coal now costs less than 1/3 the equivalent cost of natural gas at their respective sources. Less than $1.00/MMBTU. Coal is more competitive with gas today than it was twenty years ago.
When do they tell Exxon to sponsor the cocktail hour at the the next Paris Climate party? and how much the catering bill is?
I intend to send my personal message to the cowards at EXiton . Stop buying their product until they
stop succumbing to green wash black mail . No wonder the little clique of AG’s targeted them . They knew they wanted to role over and were ready to sprinkle some cash their way . Foolish foolish move and an abandonment of shareholders by wimps .