Tag Articles: GHG

ExxonMobil – Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

WHEREAS

The International Energy Agency warned in its 2008 World Energy Outlook: “For all the uncertainties highlighted in this report, we can be certain that the energy world will look a lot different in 2030 than it does today. The world energy system will be transformed…”

Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ (CERA) Chairman Daniel Yergin notes that “climate change and putting a price on carbon will change the dynamics of the energy marketplace.” CERA further reports that clean energy investment could surpass $7 trillion by 2030 and that “clean energy is not a bubble or passing phenomenon. Clean energy is now poised to cross the divide and move from the fringes of the energy sector to the mainstream.”

Shareholders’ repeated request for emission reduction goals reiterates ExxonMobil’s own Environmental Business Planning process, which is used “to identify key environmental drivers…, set targets in key focus areas, and identify projects and actions to achieve those targets.” (Carbon Disclosure Project 6 [CDP6], 3(a) iii)

Proponents believe ExxonMobil’s board never has sufficiently responded to shareholders in their request for an action plan and articulated goals for reducing GHG emissions from the Company’s products and operations.

ExxonMobil has set an energy efficiency target for operations of 10% by 2012, a 5,000-Megawatt cogeneration goal by 2011, and announced investments of $4 billion to reduce flaring. And the Company finally reduced direct GHGs in 2007, after a multi-year struggle with rising GHG emissions. However admirable, this progress is inadequate because the IEA estimates that, on average, only 10% of petroleum-related emissions are from industry operations.

ExxonMobil has recently announced $300 million for lithium ion battery technologies, and $100 million for carbon capture research. Yet, we believe ExxonMobil has done a poor job of articulating a cohesive business plan for dealing with climate risk and opportunity-especially regarding its products–or offered robust responses to the financial, regulatory, and technology impacts of the climate crisis.

BP, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have made newsworthy investments in renewables and low-carbon technologies to reduce emissions, and/or have begun integrating the cost of carbon into planning and investments. ConocoPhillips, BP America, and Shell have further endorsed calls for the U.S. to reduce carbon emissions by 60-80% by 2050.

We believe that ExxonMobil has not adequately assessed or disclosed the financial effects of climate regulation or industry-changing technologies. “We do not assess current and/or future financial effects because…In ExxonMobil’s view, it is impossible today to assess potential implications for shareholder value from regulatory approaches to address rising greenhouse gas concentrations.” (CDP6)

RESOLVED

Shareholders request that the Board of Directors adopt quantitative goals, based on current technologies, for reducing total greenhouse gas emissions from the Company’s products and operations; and that the Company report to shareholders by September 30, 2009, on its plans to achieve these goals.  Such a report will omit proprietary information and be prepared at reasonable cost.

Dominion Resources – Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

WHEREAS

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that that “warming of the climate system is unequivocal” and that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are now believed to be the cause with greater than 90 percent certainty.

In October 2007, a group representing the world’s 150 scientific and engineering academies, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, issued a report urging governments to lower greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a firm and rising price for such emissions and by doubling energy research budgets to accelerate deployment of cleaner and more efficient technologies.

In October 2006, a report authored by former chief economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicolas Stern, estimated that climate change will cost between 5% and 20% of global domestic product if emissions are not reduced, and that greenhouse gases can be reduced at a cost of approximately 1% of global economic growth. The report also warned that “the investment that takes place in the next 10-20 years will have a profound effect on the climate in the second half of this century and in the next.”

U.S. power plants are responsible for nearly 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, and 10 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

According to a 2008 benchmarking study by Ceres, Dominion ranked 13th in absolute greenhouse gases emitted in 2006, responsible for about 55 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.
Coal is the most carbon-polluting type of power generation. Coal-fired plants accounted for 46% of Dominion’s generating capacity in 2007, and Dominion has planned an additional 585-megawatt coal power station for Wise County, VA. This project, and Dominion’s Salem Harbor Station in Massachusetts, are facing opposition from local and national groups.

A majority of U.S. states are involved in initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and at least 11 states in which Dominion operates or is planning to operate have enacted renewable energy or energy efficiency portfolio standards. Likely new Obama Administration regulations may halt construction on potentially half of the nation’s proposed coal plants.

New York Attorney General Cuomo is investigating whether five energy companies, including Dominion, failed to disclosed climate change related financial risks to investors.

In the Carbon Disclosure Project’s most recent annual survey of the S&P 500 (released 2008), 37% of utility respondents disclosed absolute greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and 52% disclosed intensity reduction targets.  Some of Dominion’s peers who have set absolute reduction targets include American Electric Power, Entergy, Duke Energy, Exelon, National Grid and Consolidated Edison. Those with intensity targets include CMS Energy, PSEG, NiSource and Pinnacle West. Xcel Energy and FPL have both.

RESOLVED

Shareholders request that the Board of Directors adopt quantitative goals, based on current technologies, for reducing total greenhouse gas emissions from the Company’s products and operations; and that the Company report to shareholders by September 30, 2009, on its plans to achieve these goals. Such a report will omit proprietary information and be prepared at reasonable cost.