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At the moment, climate realists are dancing in the street.  EV sales and the stocks of solar panel companies are sinking (1) (2), offshore wind projects are being abandoned around the world (3), the stock of Beyond Meat has grown increasingly rancid over the past few years (4), and the EU has caved to angry farmers and removed nitrogen and methane reductions from rules to cut greenhouse emissions (5). 

But as I pointed out in Is ESG Really Failing?, the beast that is the climate change industrial complex will not go gentle. According to the Wall St. Journal, Exxon is now under attack because it 

filed a federal lawsuit in January to block a shareholder resolution by Follow This and Arjuna Capital that sought to force steep cuts to the company’s CO2 emissions, including any from the combustion of its products. As Exxon explained in its suit, the resolution would force it to “change the nature of its ordinary business or to go out of business entirely.” (6)

Is Exxon’s response hyperbolic? Not if you consider Follow This’ mission statement: 

“we buy shares in order to work on our mission to stop climate change, not to make a financial profit,” and to make producers “stop exploring for more oil and gas and start exploring for new business models.”

Of course, this childishness, which assumes a company the size and complexity of Exxon can create a profitable, new business model with the flip of a switch, would be laughable if Follow This was not so dangerously serious.   In an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal, Adam Crum, Alaska’s Commissioner of Revenue, explains how Alaska has not sided with climate activists on this issue because “we recognize that we have a duty to our beneficiaries and that oil and gas development is the bedrock of Alaska’s economy.” (7)  Mr. Crum significantly understates the importance of Alaska’s stance.  As my citation of Mark Mills in our previous blog post puts it, “100 percent of everything in civilized society, including the favored “green energy” machines themselves, depends on using hydrocarbons somewhere in the supply chains and systems.” (8)  Imagine the catastrophe that would engulf the world’s 8 billion people if every hydrocarbon producer ceased exploring tomorrow. 

Follow This and Arjuna dropped their resolution in February, “perhaps worried that they might be required to pay legal damages if they lost.”  But as they lost their appetite (for the moment), other climate warriors have continued to besiege Exxon: 

California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) on Monday (5/17) said it would vote against all of Exxon’s directors at its shareholder meeting next week.

Proxy adviser Glass Lewis last week recommended that shareholders reject Exxon’s lead independent director Jospeh Hooley’s re-election.

Majority Action, a leftist outfit, is also prodding institutional investors to oust CEO Darren Woods and Mr. Hooley for “attacking shareholder democracy and failing to address climate risk.”

Though Follow This, Arjuna and Majority Action are annoying gadflys in the climate change wars, Calpers and Glass Lewis are fire-breathing dragons.  Calpers owns $1 billion in Exxon stock (9), and Glass Lewis advises over 1,300 clients with more than $40 trillion in assets. (10)

As the immortal Levon Helm sang, “the battle is over but the war goes on.” (11)  The beast, in all its myriad manifestations, large and small, must eat. 

Don Harrison

1. https://www.realclearenergy.org/video/2023/11/08/dealers_cant_sell_overpriced_evs_991551.html
2. https://www.investopedia.com/solar-power-stocks-sink-as-enphase-energy-warns-about-falling-demand-8383847
3. https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/11/wind-power-blowing-up/
4. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-reasons-avoid-beyond-meat-134500632.html
5. https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/02/farmers-protests-lead-eu-commission-to-nix-damaging-green-plans/
6. All following quotations, unless otherwise noted, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-mobil-proxy-voting-shareholder-resolution-arjuna-capital-follow-this-afe881fa?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
7. https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-mobil-takes-on-climate-extremists-6948185e?mod=opinion_lead_pos11
8. https://heartofliberty.com/blog/blog/7402040/unattainable-sustainability
9. https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2024/calpers-votes-against-exxonmobil-directors-for-anti-shareholder-lawsuit
10. https://www.glasslewis.com/company-overview/
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoMUqWqyTzQ

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