ClimateWire: Conservative shareholders attack ‘climate clown show’

by Corbin Hiar
E&E News ClimateWire

Conservative rabble-rouser Steve Milloy wasn’t happy last year when sustainable investment advocates scored a series of major victories at the annual meeting of Exxon Mobil Corp.

A climate-focused hedge fund had won enough votes to oust a quarter of the oil major’s board. Sustainability advocates also succeeded in passing two nonbinding resolutions calling for more information about Exxon’s climate lobbying.

So Milloy, an ally of former President Donald Trump and a climate science critic, filed a proposal that called for Exxon to ban future shareholder resolutions. It’s one of a handful of proposals Milloy has submitted this year targeting the environment, social and governance, or ESG, efforts of companies he’s invested in.

“There is a cancer on Exxon Mobil. That cancer is climate activist shareholders,” he said last month at the oil giant’s shareholder meeting. “We must stop Exxon Mobil-hating activists from turning the annual meeting into a climate clown show so they can take over the company.”