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ExxonMobil director feels climate heat

A coalition of institutional investors and shareholder activists is challenging the re-election of ExxonMobil director Michael Boskin, who chairs the company's public issues committee, saying he had repeatedly failed to meet them to discuss ExxonMobil's position on climate change.

The group also claims the oil supermajor has failed to taking appropriate actions to reduced its greenhouse gas emissions and expand its renewable energy portfolio.

The coalition said today it represented $900 billlion in investment in the giant oil company, including stakes held by the California State Teachers Retirement System, F&C Management, the Illinois State Board of Investment, the New York City Employees Retirement System, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, trade union funds as well as retirement and trust funds controlled by the California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, North Carolina and Vermont State Treasurers.

Boskin, a Stanford University economics professor who has been on the company's board since 1996, is up for re-election at ExxonMobil's annual general meeting on 30 May in Dallas.

Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier wrote to shareholders last month urging them not to support Boskin's re-election, saying the Connecticut Retirement Plan and Trust Funds and other investors had request meeting with Boskin five times over the last 18 months "to discuss Exxonmobil's position on climate risk and its impact of on the long-term value of our investment in the company".

She wrote that the requests had all been declined.

"While its competitors are moving aggressively on climate change, this company ... continues to hide its head in the sand rather than acknowledge the business implications of climate change," Nappier told reporters in a conference call today.

An ExxonMobil spokesman told Reuters Boskin had spent considerable time addresssing the shareholders concerns over the past year. He said Boskin had written to Nappier and other four times and had arranged a meeting between the group and ExxonMobil management.

Nappier wrote in her letter to shareholders that the this was not a substitute for a full meeting with Boskin and other board members.

"We are concerned that the advice on climate risk provided by the public issues committee to the full ExxonMobil board does not reflect the views of key institutional shareholders," she wrote.

ExxonMobil said in its corporate citizenship report released today that it had reduced the number of oil spills by 21% over last year, a record low.

However, the company also said its greenhouse gas emissions rose by 5.4% to 146 million tonnes as it brought new oil production online in Africa and stepped up liquefied natural gas projects in the Middle East.

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