The Rockefeller
Family Fund said on Wednesday it would divest from fossil fuels as
quickly as possible and "eliminate holdings" of Exxon Mobil Corp, saying
the oil company associated with the family fortune has misled the
public about climate change risks.
Though
only a sliver of the endowment's modest $130 million in assets is
invested in fossil fuels, the move is notable because a century ago John
D. Rockefeller Sr. made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to
Exxon Mobil. The charity said it would also divest from coal and
Canadian oil sands.
Given the
threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, "there is
no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources
of hydrocarbons," the Rockefeller Family Fund said.
In a letter posted on its website, the fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be "morally reprehensible."
Asked
about the Rockefeller announcement, Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers said
in a statement: "It's not surprising that they're divesting from the
company."
"The Rockefeller Family
Fund provided financial support to InsideClimate News and Columbia
University Journalism School which produced inaccurate and deliberately
misleading stories about ExxonMobil's history of climate research,"
Jeffers added.
Rockefeller Family Fund Director Lee Wasserman responded in an email that Exxon was not singled out.
"We
supported public interest journalism to better understand how the
fossil fuel industry was dealing with the reality of climate science
internally and publicly," Wasserman said. "No specific company was
targeted in our push to drive better public understanding and better
climate policy."
Last year, after
publication of the stories that Exxon mentioned, New York State Attorney
General Eric Schneiderman launched an investigation into whether the
company misled the public and shareholders about the risks of climate
change.
On Wednesday,
Exxon said those stories "wrongly suggested that we had reached
definitive conclusions about the risks of climate change decades before
the world's experts and while climate science was in an early stage of
development."
The company said it believes the threat of climate change is clear and warrants action.
In
response to the divestment movement, many oil industry leaders have
said millions of people in the developing world would be condemned to
darkness and poverty if society were to halt the burning of fossil fuels
before there is ample supply of cleaner energy sources.
As early as 2008, members of the Rockefeller family called on Exxon to increase spending on alternative fuels.
In
late 2014, another fund associated with the family, the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund (RBF), said it would divest from fossil fuels.
Shares of Exxon fell 0.4 percent to $83.75 on Wednesday as U.S. oil prices slipped 4 percent.
(Reuters)