May 26, 2020

350.org on Exxon’s Shareholder Meeting: “A tiger can’t change its stripes.”

Calls on shareholders to dump Exxon Stock and divest 

Dallas, Texas. Today Exxon Mobil hosts its annual shareholder meeting which is being conducted virtually this year. Exxon is one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, and they have actively spread disinformation about the impact of fossil fuels on worsening the climate crisis for decades and have refused to change course. 350.org believes that institutional shareholders, and particularly those controlling pension funds, must try a different approach. 

“A tiger cannot change its stripes. After more than a decade of shareholder engagement, Exxon still has the same tone deaf, destructive and aggressive plans to expand oil and gas drilling and undermine climate action. The climate decade demands that we keep fossil fuels in the ground and time is running out,” said Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, 350.org North America Director. “It’s neither prudent nor profitable to invest in fossil fuels. Big institutional shareholders responsible for managing hard earned pensions for tens of millions of Americans should get out of the business of bets against humanity. Divest now for people and planet.”

Exxon, faces several dozen climate-related lawsuits and investigations by cities and states which seek to recover costs due to climate change. The company’s stock price has dropped more than 35% in the past year and 45% in the past 5 years. Its debt load has increased and its dividend is increasingly looking unsustainable. 

“It’s astonishing that my home state, New York, would continue to invest hundreds of millions dollars of the state pension fund at the altar of Exxon in order to try to “talk” them into changing. After years of being ignored, duped and lied to, isn’t it time for New York to try a different tactic and save public money and public trust? It’s time to Dump Exxon,“ added Toles O’Laughlin.

A recent report by Carbon Tracker revealed that oil majors, including Exxon, must cut their production levels by ⅓ in the next 2 decades to stay in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. Exxon, with some of the largest fossil fuel reserves in the world, has no plans to cut production and is actively pursuing exploiting new sources of oil and gas. Currently Exxon is behind an aggressive push to expand production in the Permian basin and is seeking to benefit from federal stimulus packages. Since the Paris Climate Agreement, Exxon and the other four  largest listed oil and gas companies in the world, have spent more than $1 billion lobbying to prevent climate action

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Press Contact: Thanu Yakupitiyage, [email protected], 413-687-5160

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