Statement by Peter Altman,
National Coordinator for Campaign ExxonMobil
February 25, 2003

Good afternoon and thank you to everyone joining us for this announcment of climate change resolutions filed for this years' ExxonMobil annual meeting.

I'd like to recognize and thank Connecticut Treasurer Denise L. Nappier, Robert A.G. Monks and Sister Patricia Daly for participating on this call.

I'm going to provide a brief overview the climate issue at ExxonMobil, and then turn it over to Sister Pat who will review the history of engaging ExxonMobil management on climate change.

After Sister Pat, Denise Nappier, Treasurer of the State of Connecticut, will explain why ExxonMobil's lack of a climate strategy is a cause for concern for all investors, not just socially oriented ones.

Bob Monks will then discuss his resolution asking for a separation of the position of CEO from Chairman of the company.

We will then take questions.

We are seeing very impressive growth showing a spreading shareholder revolt against ExxonMobil management. For the 2002 meeting there were 12 resolutions on a variety of topics filed, 8 of which were voted on. For the 2003 meeting coming in May, 23 resolutions were filed, and we are expecting 17 to be voted on, though this number can change anytime prior to the annual meeting.

Of the 17 resolutions, five have to do with the environment and four of those grow out of concerns about climate change. The four are:

• Request for a report on risks from climate change and how the company will mitigate those risks to protect shareholder value, filed by Sister Patricia Daly of the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey and co-filed by the State of Connecticut Pension Fund.
• Request to separate the positions of chairman from CEO, filed by Robert Monks.
• Request for a report on the company's strategy to meet the growing regulatory, competitive and public pressures to invest in renewable energy, filed by Mike Crosby of the Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order.
• Request for a report on the company's goals and plans for investing in energy efficiency, filed by an individual investor.

While many of our comments are pertinent to all of these, we are going to focus on the first two in our discussions today.

Climate change is a growing concern for investors and the financial community worldwide. There now exist many indicators of this, but the most recent is also the most robust and comprehensive.

Thirty institutional investors representing over $4 Trillion in assets - including Connecticut Treasurer Denise Nappier's Connecticut Fund - joined together to form the Carbon Disclosure Project. The Carbon Disclosure Project recently released the results of a survey of the chairmen of the world's largest 500 companies as determined by market cap. This is the largest and most extensive survey on this subject to date.

The survey was intended to assess levels of awareness of climate change as a business risk and responses to that risk. The institutional investors found that 80% of the world's largest companies say climate is a major business risk, and half that number are taking concrete action to respond to it.

Those of us on the call have focused on ExxonMobil's climate position because the company is doing decidedly little to respond to climate change. There are three key points which come to light when you look at ExxonMobil's climate response:

• ExxonMobil appears to be doing almost nothing different in response to the threat of climate change. According to Lee Raymond, the science is still unsettled and as a result, the only action ExxonMobil will take now is what is economic right now. That position sets as zero the value ExxonMobil places on climate risk.
• ExxonMobil's competitors are taking actions that reflect assignment of value to climate risk. They are investing in renewables, building emissions trading units, assigning an internal "shadow" value on carbon as they plan future projects. They are disclosing to their shareholders and the public a wide array of risk mitigation strategies.
• ExxonMobil, in contrast, seems to have developed a strategy of readying itself for the best-case scenario. If it turns out in 10 or 15 years that climate change is no longer a problem, the company will be ready. But what if any other scenario should evolve?

The fundamental concern is that ExxonMobil seems to be approaching climate change as though there is very little or no risk at all - a view that is very much in the minority. They appear to be hoping that climate change will go away.

But hope that climate change will go away is not a strategy, its a wish - a wish that ExxonMobil seems to be relying on the climate fairy to grant. Investors who don't want to rely on this strategy should be asking the company to explain how it will meet the challenge of climate change.

For years shareholders have been calling on ExxonMobil to take a responsible position on global warming. Sister Patricia Daly has been involved in this since 1996 and will outline the history of engaging ExxonMobil management. Sister Patricia Daly has been involved in this since 1996 and will outline the history of engaging ExxonMobil management on climate change.