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Exxon Mobil Appoints Anti-Oil Climate Scientist To Board Of Directors
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Exxon Mobil appointed an anti-fossil fuel climate scientist Wednesday to its board of directors in an effort to placate environmentalists who claim the oil company hid information about global warming.
Susan Avery, a former director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, was elected a board director of the much beleaguered oil company dealing with a type of inquisition targeting its climate record.
Avery is a climate scientists specializing in atmospheric dynamics and extensively on climate change. She helped the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cobble together climate research.
“Clearly climate science is telling us get off fossil fuels as much as possible,” Avery said at a conference in 2014. She was a member of the scientific advisory board to Ban Ki-moon when he was secretary-general of the UN.
Her appointment comes after a small number of Exxon investors last year demanded the company add a director with expertise in climate change to its board. The investors — all of whom own 20.9 percent of the company’s shares — argued that Exxon’s board needs voices advocating for climate science.
Many of the company’s largest institutional shareholders say they are worried that the largest energy company in the world is not preparing adequately for a world in which it would need to contend with the directives laid out in the Paris climate agreement, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions levels by magnitudes over the next two decades.
Exxon has given piecemeal in the past to pro-carbon tax arguments to reduce carbon emission levels — but it has greatly increased its call for the tax, as pressure mounts for the company to counter environmentalist claims it is contributing to so-called man-made global warming.
Top officials in the company met with officials in Washington, D.C., in July about related legislation meant to reduce carbon emissions, according to Exxon’s recent lobby disclosure forms. The beleaguered oil producer also met with trade groups such as the American Petroleum Institute (API) at the same time to explain its position on the tax.
Investigations into the company’s history of supposedly hiding climate research is partially the result of a September report on Exxon conducted by InsideClimate News. The outlet’s probes found Exxon had allegedly played fast and loose with information concerning global warming.
InsideClimate News also alleges that Amoco, Phillips, Texaco, Shell, and others joined Exxon in misleading the public about the supposed effects global warming has on sea levels.
A judge denied Exxon a protective order on Jan. 12 that would have blocked Massachusetts Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey’s demand for Exxon’s climate change records. The judge in the case — Heidi E. Brieger — was nominated to the court by former Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick.
Texas federal Judge Ed Kinkeade, meanwhile, suggested in October that Healey acted in “bad faith” when she issued a subpoena to the oil company for 30-years worth of documents.
The oil company wants the judge to prohibit Healey from continuing her investigation, arguing the probe violates the company’s First Amendment rights. It also refutes the idea it violated the law and claims it promotes carbon taxes as a way to fight man-made global warming.
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