ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil oil refinery - Baton Rouge, Louisiana
The EU has been urged to remove ExxonMobil's lobbying access following the US oil giant's failure to attend a court hearing into climate change denial. If the high-level vote, expected by the end of April, is successful, it would make ExxonMobil the second multinational, after Monsanto, to lose access to parliamentary meetings, MEPs and digital resources.
While the oil giant publicly endorses the Paris Agreement, it has drawn much criticism from scientists, environmentalists and academics who have accused it of spreading climate misinformation.
In what could be her last act in the European Parliament, UK MEP and Green group deputy Molly Scott Cato told the Brussels hearing that she would make a formal request to deny ExxonMobil to its six registered parliament access badges.
She said: “This is the company that denied the science, despite knowing the damage their oil exploitation was causing; which funded campaigns to block action on climate and now refuses to face up to its environmental crimes by attending today’s hearing. We cannot allow the lobbyists from such corporations free access to the corridors of the European parliament. We must remove their badges immediately.”
Cato said, "lobbyists shall have their access badges denied" when they refuse or fail to comply with a formal summons to attend committee hearings or inquiries. "I believe this provides us with grounds we need to withdraw Exxon's lobby badges," she continued.
Cato was supported by Eleonora Evi MEP. Evi sits on the petition and environment committee that hosted the first EU public hearing into Exxon's climate change stance.
In a letter, ExxonMobil said that the oil giant has been "constrained from participating because of ongoing climate litigation in the United States."
It added that it was concerned that public commentary included at the Brussels hearing "could prejudice those pending proceedings."
Scientists and activists told the parliamentary hearing that ExxonMobil has been misleading the public for decades about the threat of climate change, making comparisons to past lobbying campaigns by the tobacco industry.
Harvard University researcher Geoffrey Supran told the hearing that ExxonMobil had known since the late-1950s that the burning of fossil fuels "was sufficient to melt the ice cap and submerge New York" but continued to cast public doubt on the issue.
According to the Corporate Europe Observatory, ExxonMobil has spent over €35 million on lobbying since 2010, holding regular direct meetings with EU Commissioners and sitting on several advisory panels.
ExxonMobil's influence inside the bloc led the European Commission to try to enlist its help during the now-defunct TTIP negotiations in 2013, offering advice on provisions to smooth the company's expansion in Russia, Africa and Latin America. War on Want has described Exxon's influence as "tantamount to corruption".
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