WASHINGTON (April 2, 2019)—ExxonMobil blocked shareholders from voting on a shareholder proposal asking the company to set and disclose carbon emissions reduction targets consistent with the Paris climate agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature increase well below two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5° C. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today sided with the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company, allowing it to exclude a proposal from institutional investors led by the New York State Comptroller and Church of England that called for short-, medium-, and long-term targets to reduce global warming emissions from company operations and from the use of its products.
Below is a statement by Kathy Mulvey, fossil fuel accountability campaign director at UCS.
“ExxonMobil is attacking the messenger, rather than facing reality. Its shareholders see the writing on the wall: climate impacts are rapidly worsening, and the market is already moving towards a zero-emissions economy. Meanwhile, ExxonMobil’s response to the climate crisis is woefully insufficient and will only hurt the company in the long run.”