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New York investigating Exxon over climate statements: source

A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas in this file photo from September 15, 2008. The New York attorney general has launched an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil Corp ( XOM.N ) misled the public and shareholders about the risks of climate change. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed the company on Wednesday evening, demanding extensive financial records, emails and other documents, a source familiar with the investigation said on Thursday. Exxon on Thursday said it was weighing a response to the subpoena. The company has included information about the business risk of climate change for many years in its quarterly filings, corporate citizenship report and in other reports to shareholders, company spokesman Richard Keil said. The New York Times first reported the news on Thursday. ( nyti.ms/1HuEJC8 ) The Exxon investigation might expand to other oil companies, according to the people with knowledge of the case, […]

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Exxon Probed by New York in Toughest U.S. Climate Crackdown Yet

New York’s decision to probe climate change disclosures by Exxon Mobil Corp. marks the most aggressive state action yet on the financial effects of burning fossil fuels. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a subpoena to the company on Wednesday seeking a lengthy list of documents and disclosures, including communications with trade associations and industry groups, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the probe isn’t public. The request seeks information dating from the 1970s to the present, the person said. The investigation is seeking information on whether the world’s biggest oil explorer lied to investors and the public for almost 40 years about the impact of climate change on profits, the person said. As a manufacturer of 10 million gallons of gasoline and other fuels every hour of every day, Exxon is one of the world’s largest sources of […]

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Imagine If Exxon Had Told the Truth on Climate Change

Like all proper scandals, the #Exxonknew revelations have begun to spin off new dramas and lines of inquiry. Presidential candidates have begun to call for Department of Justice investigations, and company spokesmen have begun to dig themselves deeper into the inevitable holes as they try to excuse the inexcusable. (Worst idea: attack Pulitzer prize-winning reporters as “ anti-oil and gas activists ”) As the latest expose installment from those hopeless radicals at the Los Angeles Times clearly shows, Exxon made a conscious decision to adopt what a company public affairs officer called “the Exxon position.” It was simple: “Emphasize the uncertainty.” Even though they knew there was none. Someone else will have to decide if that deceit was technically illegal. Perhaps the rich and powerful have been drafting the laws for so long that Exxon will skate; I confess my confidence that the richest company in American history can […]

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How Climate Change Is Threatening Iraq’s Fragile Security

Iraqi protesters chant slogans as they wave national flags during a demonstration against corruption in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, October 16, 2015. In a telling exchange during the first Democratic primary presidential debate earlier this month, the candidates were asked to articulate the greatest threat to US national security. “It’s certainly the chaos in the Middle East,” answered Lincoln Chafee, the former senator and governor of Rhode Island who later dropped out of the race. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders responded to the question by citing the “global crisis of climate change.” Whether you agree with either candidate’s assessment, it’s a mistake to talk about global conflict and climate change without highlighting how the two phenomena are inextricably linked. Extreme weather and resource scarcity exacerbated by climate change are worsening the effects of war, from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa, with civilians often bearing the brunt of […]

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‘Intolerable’ Heat May Hit the Middle East by the End of the Century

Photo Pilgrims prayed in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in September. A study warning of "intolerable" temperatures in some Middle East population centers due to climate change could have severe consequences for the annual hajj pilgrimage. Credit Ahmad Masood/Reuters By the end of this century, areas of the Persian Gulf could be hit by waves of heat and humidity so severe that simply being outside for several hours could threaten human life, according to a new study published Monday. Because of humanity’s contribution to climate change , the authors wrote, some population centers in the Middle East “are likely to experience temperature levels that are intolerable to humans.” The dangerously muggy summer conditions predicted for places near the warm waters of the Gulf could overwhelm the ability of the human body to reduce its temperature through sweating and ventilation. That threatens anyone without air-conditioning — including the poor, but also those […]

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Exxon slams report for cherry-picking climate legacy

Exxon critical of climate reporting news website it says cherry-picked company information on climate track record. Photo by Katherine Welles/Shutterstock. IRVING, Texas, Oct. 22 (UPI) — U.S. supermajor Exxon Mobil took aim at climate activists for what the company said were inaccurate and misleading accounts of its position on climate issues. InsideClimate News has produced a series suggesting the energy company deliberately campaigned to cast doubt about the impacts of climate change even though its own scientists warned the issue may threaten its core business. Ken Cohen, Exxon’s vice president of public and government affairs, said the reporting was inaccurate and deliberately misleading . "These activists took those statements out of context and ignored other readily available statements demonstrating that our researchers recognized the developing nature of climate science at the time which, in fact, mirrored global understanding," he said in an emailed statement. Reporting from InsideClimate News drew […]

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Even BP admits, some existing oil reserves are unburnable

The idea of a carbon bubble — the scenario in which fossil fuel-related investments become “stranded assets” as the world moves away from fossil fuels — has been gaining mainstream credence in recent months. From coal communities seeking help to transition from fossil fuels to vastly improved renewables that are competing directly with carbon emitting fuels , there are good reasons to question the idea that fossil fuel demand will continue to grow in the coming decades. Still, I wasn’t expecting the latest development in the carbon bubble story. The new economics of oil As reported over at The Guardian, oil giant BP has just admitted that some existing fossil fuel reserves are unburnable , and that some oil will have to remain in the ground if we are to have any hope of keeping global climate change within “safe” (which, at this point, really just means “less dangerous”) […]

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Devastating Chart Shows Why El Niño Won’t Fix the Drought

Click to Open Overlay Gallery The California Aqueduct in the Mojave Desert near Palmdale, CA. Steve Proehl/Corbis This story originally appeared on Mother Jones and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In California, news of a historically powerful El Niño oceanic warming event is stoking hopes that winter rains will ease the state’s brutal drought . But for farmers in the Central Valley, one of the globe’s most productive agricultural regions, water troubles go much deeper—literally—than the current lack of precipitation. That’s the message of an eye-popping report from researchers at the US Geological Survey. This chart tells the story: To understand it, note that in the arid Central Valley, farmers get water to irrigate their crops in two ways. The first is through massive, government-built projects that deliver melted snow from the Sierra Nevada mountains. The second is by digging wells into the ground and pumping water […]

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CEOs of 10 major oil and gas companies commit to 2 degrees C climate target

* Call for effective climate deal at Paris summit * ‘Clear’ policies needed to meet 2 degrees target * Focus on efficiency, gas, CCS, renewables The CEOs of 10 major oil and gas companies on Friday made a joint declaration on climate change, calling for an effective global agreement at a United Nations climate summit in Paris in December. The 10 companies — which make up almost a fifth of all oil and gas production and supply nearly 10% of the world’s energy — declared their support for an effective agreement at the 21st Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Parties to the so-called Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) are BG Group, BP, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil and Total. Article continues below… Every Monday, Capitol Hill newshounds Brian Scheid and Herman Wang analyze, dissect and debate the key […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple