Investor Support Of Climate Action Grows

Group Says Shareholders Increasingly Back Company Resolutions Targeting Greenhouse Gases

(AP)  Support for climate-change proposals may be growing among investors in big U.S. companies.

Shareholder resolutions related to climate change more than doubled over the past five years, according to statistics gathered by a coalition of public interest groups, environmental organizations and pension funds. Moreover, the coalition, Boston-based Ceres, says support for those measures averaged more than 23 percent in 2008, a new high.

While that's not enough to pass a resolution, Ceres contends rising vote totals compel companies to act, like a plan by Ford Motor Co. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020.

"It's easy to ignore 3 or 5 percent votes, but it's pretty hard to ignore 22 percent votes or 39 percent votes," said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs for Ceres.

Bakal said shareholder activism led to new reports from Allegheny Energy and other large electricity producers that outline strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The companies faced climate change resolutions this year. The proposals were withdrawn after companies agreed to issue the reports, Bakal said.

"It's an indication of movement," he said.

It was similar to what happened after shareholders voted against a climate change resolution last year, Allegheny spokesman Allen Staggers said.

"That proposal was rejected by stockholders. However, the company elected to prepare a report simply because it had been a timely issue," he said. "The chairman thought it was the right thing to do at the time."

Deciding to issue a report or take some other action, often with the side benefit of lowering costs or increasing efficiency, is an understandable reaction by companies, said Karen Schnatterly, an assistant professor of management at the University of Missouri.

"They look good," she said.

Ceres says 57 climate-related shareholder resolutions were filed with U.S. companies in 2008, up from 43 in 2007 and 31 in 2006.

Support likewise has climbed from an average of 17.8 percent in 2006 and 21.6 percent last year. This year, support averaged 23.5 percent, according to Ceres.

Fewer than half the resolutions end up before shareholders. Ceres says 26 went to a vote in 2008, and 25 were withdrawn after companies agreed to address the issue. Five others were withdrawn by proponents due to technicalities or left out of proxy statements by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Despite Ceres' claims of success, so far none of the proposals has come close to passing. The best showing the group can cite is a resolution rejected by the owners of better than 60 percent of Pittsburgh-based coal mine operator Consol Energy shares.

Thus far, Bakal said he knows of no action by Consol despite the relatively high level of shareholder support.

Consol, which links the vote total to support by an institutional investor advisory service, sees little value in a report, spokesman Tom Hoffman said.

"We produce coal and natural gas," Hoffman said. "It just doesn't seem to us that there is a whole lot of value to shareholders to do a study to tell them what they already know."

Charles Elson, corporate governance chair at the University of Delaware, says the lack of victories shows social issues simply haven't attracted mainstream investors, despite support from some large pension funds.

"I don't think it's caught on yet," Elson said.

[bigwhtpony]

LONDON (Reuters) - The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday.

Man made global warming my A**!

[jimfinster]

But we''''ll welcome you with open arms Jim when you can''''t stand it any longer.

Posted by Seafang


I was talking with a guy like you the other day. He did not know a single relevant fact about climate change, yet he was sure it was a fraud. In other words, he had an ideological position, not a factual position.

The scientific illiteracy in this country is depressing sometimes....

[sparks224]

Stop purchasing gasoline NOW!

[mostly_slick]

america would like to do away with greenhouse gases...

too bad our great leader, bush, is not on board.

do you think mc cain will be any different.

republicons...arrogant creeps!

hah,ha,ha.

[ubrew12]

Seafang said: "Did you have to cancel your Kayaking trip to the North Pole Jim? Too bad that your patron saint''s predictions just aren''t panning out"
On the particular subject of Polar ice, you are now so completely out of wack it''d be funny if it weren''t so sad.

[seafang]

"Seafang:

Still in denial I see.

Posted by jimfinster at 02:55 PM : Aug 20, 2008"

Well Jim you arer just going to have to get a real job. The slab of ice you are standing on, is slowly dissolving around you; and it''s not going to support you for much longer.

Did you have to cancel your Kayaking trip to the North Pole Jim? Too bad that your patron saint''s predictions just aren''t panning out; it gets increasingly difficult as time goes on to hang onto that belief. It''s like a 18 month old child standing in a corner with his eyes closed in the belief that makes him invisible.

But we''ll welcome you with open arms Jim when you can''t stand it any longer.

[ubrew12]

Seafang said: "It will take science 100 years to recover from this greatest science scandal of all time; making the Galileo affair seem like a sunday school picnic. "
Except that the Galileo affair took 500 years to recover from. 500 years before the Catholic Church could muster up the humility to apologize to his corpse.

[jimfinster]

Seafang:

Still in denial I see.

[seafang]

Well I wouldn''t call them Investors. Carpetbagger speculators maybe; but not investors.

They are like the Vultures gathering around a carcass for scraps; in this case, the scaps are the multi giga bucks of Taxpayer''s money, that the government is handing out like popcorn to any charlatan who knows nothing about energy or climate, but knows how to glean free bucks when he sees them.

And as donevis says; the global warming scam has run its course, and Al Gore and the IPCC scalliwags will soon be tarred and feathered out in some public square; and publicly humiliated for this farce. It will take science 100 years to recover from this greatest science scandal of all time; making the Galileo affair seem like a sunday school picnic.

[donevis-2009]

While on the other side of the coin;
University of Mexico expert says lack of solar activity to cause significant cooling that will last over half a century

Paul Joseph Watson
Tuesday, August 19, 2008

As evidence builds of the earth entering a dramatic cooling trend, another scientist has gone public with his conviction that we are about to enter a new ice age, rendering warnings about global warming fraudulent and irrelevant.

Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera of the Institute of Geophysics at the University of Mexico states that %u201CIn about ten years the Earth will enter a %u201Clittle ice age%u201D which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity,%u201D according to a report in the major Mexican newspaper Milenio Diario.

Herrera slammed the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change%u2019s (IPCC) stance on global warming as %u201Cerroneous%u201D because of their failure to factor in the impact of solar activity.

[missingamerica]

Well, that took long enough...

If you had assumed that "investors" (which means, people with sufficient money to invest) are smart enough to think "What is the point of having all of the money if the world is dead?" long ago, you would have been wrong...

Like I was.