On May 26, an annual meeting of ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas drew protests outside the meeting and organized an effort inside the meeting of dissident shareholders who confronted management on the company’s global warming policy.

A new resolution, Climate Science Report, asked the company to disclose the scientific data upon which it bases claims that concerns about global warming are exaggerated and that human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning, are not causing worldwide temperatures to rise. The resolution was presented by The Christian Brothers Investment Service, a group of shareholders concerned about investing in ethical companies.

John Wilson, who represents the group, said dissident shareholders decided to change their approach, after years of working to change the company’s position. Past resolutions had asked Exxon to provide shareholders with information about business aspects of climate change including investment risks and renewable energy projects. This year’s climate science resolution, which garnered 8.8 percent of shareholders’ support, asks only that the company disclose the science behind its global warming denials.

“I think we know there is consensus among the scientific community about climate change,” Wilson said, “so what we’re asking the company to do is to provide the data that supports (their) contrarian view so that we can have a real debate about it. It’s not enough to simply say ‘we don’t think it’s really happening.’”

Sr. Patricia Daly, director for the Tri-state Coalition for Responsible Investors, also attended this year’s meeting to support the climate science resolution.

“I am consistently appalled by their [ExxonMobil] efforts to pave the way in the misinformation campaign on global warming,” Daly said. Daly represents faith-based institutions before the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The Center includes more than 275 Jewish, Protestant and Catholic institutional investors together holding assets worth $122 billion in American companies, including Exxon.

Also supporting passage of the climate science resolution was Citizens’ League for Environmental Action Now President, Jane Dale Owen.

“ExxonMobil’s disclosure on global warming has been inadequate and misleading,” Owen said. “This resolution called on the company to demonstrate corporate accountability. I urge all shareholders to support this resolution.”

Despite the strong debut, the climate science report resolution’ still garnered a much lower rating than previous resolutions. Past resolutions addressing Exxon’s business activities related to climate change had climbed over 20 percent. Nevertheless, dissident shareholders said they were pleasantly surprised by the climate science resolution’s 8.8 percent approval rating. Shareholders said they had to change their approach, even if it meant starting from scratch, because past resolutions were thrown out by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC ruled last year that investors could not compel Exxon to provide information about financial risks related to global warming through the resolution process, maintaining such information should be included in the company’s annual report.

But Michelle Chan-Fishel of Friends of the Earth, a Washington, DC-based environmental group, says Exxon has not complied with the ruling and the resolution process should provide shareholders with appropriate recourse.

“If you take a look at what companies are saying in their financial statements, what you find is really poor and uneven disclosure of climate risks,” Chan-Fischel said. “If the SEC isn’t doing its job to make sure that companies adequately disclose climate risks, then they darn well better make sure that they give shareholders means to remedy this lack of information.”

ExxonMobil is the largest oil company in the world. Accounting for 25 percent of total global emissions of carbon dioxide, it is also the largest contributor to global warming. Friends of the Earth recently released two reports, conducted by independent experts, revealing the cumulative emissions of ExxonMobil and the effects of those emissions on the climate.

In the first study, researchers estimate Exxon has emitted 20.3 billion tons of carbon into the air since 1882 when the company was first incorporated as Standard Oil Trust. That amount accounts for five percent of total global emissions in the same 120-year period. The second study concluded that, since 1882, Exxon’s emissions have contributed as much as 3.7 percent of global temperature change that is attributable to human activity and about two percent of total sea-level rise.

Despite such statistics, which place a significant portion of the blame for global warming on Exxon’s shoulders, the company continues to dismiss dissident shareholders’ appeals to engage the global debate. Beyond resisting dissident shareholders’ efforts, the company has invested considerable resources to impede federal energy policy that would require emissions reductions and stalled its industry competitors poised on the evolution of renewable technology. Exxon CEO Lee Raymond continues to tell shareholders that, when it comes to global warming, the science is uncertain and risks are incalculable.

Kirk Davies, a researcher for Greenpeace USA, was one of those on hand for the latest shareholders’ vote. He said the environmental movement focuses its efforts year after year on ExxonMobil because of the company’s influence on the industry and the federal government.

“ExxonMobil is one of the largest corporations in the world so that means a lot,” Davies said. “Last year they had record profits and they made more money than any other company in corporate history, so that power goes a long way.”

Davies blasted Exxon and its CEO for maintaining its stance despite the findings of the global scientific community and the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change.

“[Raymond’s position] is just not true; many companies, including large financial institutions, have looked at this and estimated enormous financial risks in a future world where global warming is a reality,” he said. “But it is the corporate culture at this time to deny it, and you hear rounds of applause of shareholders at these meetings for those on the other side, those who stand up and say don’t worry about these ‘eco-terrorists’ and then continue to stick their heads in the sand.”

While dissident shareholders are looking to next year’s meeting to boost votes on the resolution, groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace continue to pursue avenues beyond the shareholder process. However, in addition to funding questionable research and lobbying elected officials, Exxon has recently focused their considerable resources into squelching protest against its policies. Claiming that the actions of peaceful Greenpeace demonstrators outside Irving headquarters last year endangered the safety of their employees, Exxon sought and won a nationwide restraining order against the organization. They are also pursuing felony riot charges against the 36 demonstrators who participated in the Irving action.

Outspent by Exxon and now legally unable to protest on company property, the group was forced to resort to more creative methods to get their message out this year, said Greenpeace Texas campaign coordinator John Hocevar. In the early hours of the morning of the shareholders’ meeting, Greenpeace activists gathered at a parking lot across the street from Exxon headquarters to project 60-foot images of global warming-related weather disasters on the outside of the building.

Because of the injunction, Greenpeace did not organize a large-scale protest like last year’s actions. Other groups, including North Texans for Social Justice and Dallas Peace and Justice, brought a handful of protesters to this year’s meeting. But they were outnumbered and eventually out-shouted by a group of counter-demonstrators. The roughly 30 Exxon supporters carried signs displaying slogans such as “I Love Oil; Oil Made Me Rich,” and “Life, Liberty and SUVs.” All said they did not believe that global warming was a problem and that fossil-fuel burning had not impacted global temperatures.

Hocevar said he was not surprised by counter-protestors opinions about climate change and that he thought they proved Exxon had successfully managed to cloud the public debate. He said Greenpeace would continue to try to educate the public, in spite of Exxon’s actions aimed at stopping them.

“I think part of the reason we’re seeing such a crackdown on civil protest is that it’s effective; throughout our history, civil disobedience has accomplished tremendous things,” he said. “Greenpeace is focused on protecting the planet and the people (who) live on it.”

Meanwhile, the company at the center of the debate has no plans to reconsider its position on global warming. Exxon Mobil CEO Lee Raymond, who sat silent during most of the shareholder discussion on global climate change, addressed reporters after the meeting.

“Until there is conclusive data,” Raymond said, “we won’t be taking any action.”