Was Shell the First Big Oil Company to Publicly Accept the Science of Climate Change and its Consequences?
The DeSmog UK epic history series investigates the divide that opened up between chief executives and shareholders who were anxious that company operations and profits could be undermined by climate change.
The heavy-handed attack from lobbyists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that arose during the 1990s presented a new risk: that the oilmen would become isolated from other leaders of industry.
As early as 1995, a deep divide began to open up between the chief executive officers and shareholders of major corporations in the United States and Britain who were anxious that their own operations and profits could be undermined by climate change.
The Delphi Group in London, a major investments advisor, published a landmark report that year, warning banks, insurers and institutional investors to immediately withdraw investments from oil and coal.
Mark Mansley, the report’s author, pointed out that “climate change presents major long-term risks to the carbon fuel industry [which] has not been adequately discounted by the financial markets.”
Major Threat
At the same time, Sven Hansen, vice-president of the Union Bank of Switzerland, spoke at a conference for finance capital: “Some of our clients are under major threat from climate change.”
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