24 May 2021
Exxon's annual meeting Wednesday will bring the most closely watched shareholder votes on global warming in Big Oil's history.
Driving the news: Activist investors Engine No. 1 have nominated four board members who would seek to make Exxon more aggressive on climate.
- Engine No. 1's backers include huge public pension funds in California and New York State, and the influential proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommends shareholders support it.
- Engine No. 1 also says Exxon lacks "any serious diversification efforts" that will prepare it to thrive in a low-carbon world. The group says Exxon needs a more disciplined capital investment approach around oil and gas.
Why it matters: It's the highest-profile effort by activist investors to force oil majors to diversify away from their dominant products more quickly.
It's also a fight over how Exxon, one of the world's most powerful corporations, should view the future after years of rocky financial performance.
The other side: Exxon management opposes the slate. The company says it's in step with the evolving energy mix, citing growing emphasis on carbon capture, hydrogen and biofuels.
- Exxon also argues its adjusted capital strategy will deliver strong returns in oil and gas, which it notes will remain huge markets for decades despite low-carbon energy growth.
- CEO Darren Woods tells the Washington Post that Engine No. 1 "have been very focused on what I would say is perceptions of the past."
The intrigue: The rebound in Exxon's share price over the last six months could bolster management. But a new wildcard emerged last week.
- An International Energy Agency analysis said a pathway to net-zero emissions in 2050 means no new oil and gas fields would be approved for development (investment in existing fields would continue).
- "It gives a fund manager extra cover to justify voting against management, cover that isn’t provided by some call to arms from Greenpeace or the Sierra Club," Bloomberg's Liam Denning writes.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.