Rockefeller Family Tried and Failed to Get Exxonmobil to Accept Climate Change

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Climate change scepticism Keep it in the ground Rockefeller family tried and failed to get ExxonMobil to accept climate change

Founding family of the US oil empire Exxon, begged the company to giv e up climate denial and reform their w ay s a decade ago – but attempts at engagement failed

Peter O’Neill, chair o f the Ro ckefeller Family co mmittee (C) sits with Neva Ro ckefeller Go o dwin, eco no mist, and g reat-g randdaug hter o f Jo hn D Ro ckefeller and Stephen B Heintz, president, Ro ckefeller Bro thers Fund during a news co nference in which Ro ckefeller family members vo iced co ncern abo ut the directio n o f the o il co mpany Exxo nMo bil in April 2008 in New Yo rk. Pho to g raph: Spencer Platt/Getty Imag es

Suzanne Goldenberg in New York @s uzyji Friday 27 March 2015 12.59 GMT

Co mments 37 Members of the Rockefeller family tried to g et ExxonMobil to acknowledg e the dang ers of climate chang e a decade ag o – but failed in their efforts to reform the oil g iant.

In letters, lunch meeting s, and shareholder resolutions, the descendants of John D Rockefeller, founder of the oil empire that eventually became Exxon, soug ht repeatedly to persuade the company to abandon climate denial and beg in shifting their business towards clean energ y.

“We were really beg g ing the company to look harder at what they were doing . They were still into climate denial and funding deniers and really ag ainst any positive steps,” said Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a co-director of the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, who helped lead the reform effort.

The outreach effort, led mainly by Rockefeller’s g reat g randchildren, beg an with a lunch meeting in 2004 with Exxon’s then head of investor relations.

“This was the family trying to g et into a friendly conversation with ExxonMobil, feeling we have a strong historical connection with that company,” said Goodwin. “We wanted to start talking with the company about their view of the future and how they could be a constructive player as well as part of the problem.”

The company was blindsided. David Henry, then head of investor relations, was “stunned” at the family’s concern about climate chang e, according to Goodwin’s recollection of events.

“The head of investor relations was really surprised to ﬁnd we didn’t love Exxon as it was but thoug ht chang es mig ht be a g ood idea,” she said.

Over the next few years, Goodwin and about a dozen other Rockefellers launched three separate shareholder resolutions pressing Exxon to recog nise climate chang e and invest in renewable energ y. The cousins also soug ht an independent chairman, believing it would make the company more responsive.

At the time the oil company was the main funder of dozens of front g roups and researchers rubbishing any link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate chang e – or denying climate chang e was occurring at all.

Among the recipients was Willie Soon, the Harvard-Smithsonian researcher who received more than $1m (£0.7m) from industry, according to documents obtained by Greenpeace throug h freedom of information ﬁling s.

In a report released on the eve of their 2008 annual g eneral meeting , the oil company pledg ed to stop funding g roups that promote climate denial.

However, the company continued funding Soon for three more years. The documents show that Exxon g ave Soon an additional $76,106 from 2008 to 2010, despite claiming to have stopped.

The shareholder resolutions were easily defeated.

Steam rises fro m to wers at an Exxo n Mo bil reﬁnery in Bayto wn, Texas. Pho to g raph: Pat Sullivan/AP

The US environmentalist Bill McKibben says the failure of the family’s efforts is telling and sig nals the limits of shareholder eng ag ement with some fossil fuel companies. “It makes a very clear point that eng ag ing with fossil fuel companies to somehow g et them to chang e their ways is unlikely to work if the family of the founder can’t g et Exxon to shift.”

The Rockefeller heirs also tried private and public pressure. Nearly 100 direct descendants also sig ned a letter expressing concern as investors and beg g ing the company to stop funding climate deniers, Goodwin said.

In 2006, another cousin, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virg inia Democrat, and Senator Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, wrote a letter to the incoming Exxon chief executive Rex Tillerson, urg ing the company to stop funding climate deniers.

“ExxonMobil’s long standing support of a small cadre of g lobal climate chang e sceptics, and those sceptics’ access to and inﬂuence on g overnment policymakers, have made it increasing ly difﬁcult for the United States to demonstrate the moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy,” the letter said. “It is our hope that under your leadership, ExxonMobil would end its dang erous support of the ‘deniers’.”

Most of the Rockefellers’ personal fortunes are held in trusts set up in the 1930s.

The family retains only a tiny fraction of shares in Exxon. But the stand taken by the Rockefellers – at a time when Exxon was under attack from campaig n g roups for its support of climate denial – rankled company executives who had expected family members to be allies, Goodwin said. “They were shocked to ﬁnd this family that had a strong link with them, and that they expect to ﬁnd a g reat friend and admirer ... had such a neg ative view.”

But even with the weig ht of that historical connection Exxon was still not persuaded to chang e.

“I was pretty discourag ed. Exxon has an extremely strong culture of believing that they are rig ht and know what they are doing and really don’t need to listen to anybody else,” Goodwin went on. “It was clear that we didn’t have an ability to make more of a dent in that.”

When the Guardian asked for a comment on the

Neva Go o dwin. Rockefellers’ attempts to eng ag e with the company it Pho to g raph: issued this statement. “ExxonMobil will not respond to GDAE/Tufts University Guardian inquiries because of its lack of objectivity on climate chang e reporting demonstrated by its campaig n ag ainst companies that provide energ y necessary for modern life, including newspapers.”

Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil’s vice president for public and g overnment affairs has previously been dismissive of the concept of fossil fuel divestment, saying that it is “out of step with reality”.

“There are no scalable alternative fuels or technolog ies available today capable of taking the place of fossil fuels and offering society what those energ y sources provide,” he wrote in a blog in October. Join us in asking the Gates Foundation and Wellcome Trust to commit now to divesting from the top 200 fossil fuel companies within five years and to immediately freeze any new investments in those companies.

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Matthew2012 15 27 Mar 2015 13:11

But it is alrig ht the Wellcome Trust are on the case with their shares - I am sure that'll do the job. On the current political trajectory of the world we will see the leg ally questionable step of blaming those most responsible and this will make quotes like the following extremely costly for Exxon board members:

Exxon Mobil will not respond to Guardian inquiries because of its lack of objectivity on climate change reporting demonstrated by its campaign against companies that provide energy necessary f or modern lif e...

The oil companies have an easy path to continue until they are stopped but to actively deny action is needed is a clear mistake and could lead to consequences that they cannot afford reg ardless of current leg islation. The quote is more accurately interpreted as: Exxon Mobil will not respond to Guardian inquiries because of its [Exxon Mobil's] lack of objectivity on climate change...

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SageRad 7 27 Mar 2015 13:53

We need a serious carbon fee and rebate. We need to cut into the proﬁts of all fossil fuel companies. No other way around it. Let's not waste any more time. Talk talk talk about the movement of money, but what we need to see is real reduction in fossil fuel use. We need to ACTUALLY DO THE THING! We need to do what needs to be done, not talk around the fring es about capitalization of publicly held companies. We need to really hit the industry. It needs to be cut down. You know what i'm saying .

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