Climate Change
Transgressed: climate change is one of the seven planetary boundaries breached in the 2025 Planetary Health Check, which finds seven of nine boundaries now crossed.
Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
Why shareholder democracy is pivotal
The Carbon Majors database links 57 corporate and state entities to 80 percent of fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions since the Paris Agreement. Investor-owned companies account for 25 percent of the emissions InfluenceMap traces to those 57 entities over 2016 to 2022, and 55 percent of them produced more in that period than they had in 2009 to 2015. The remaining three quarters of that database belongs to state-owned producers and nation states. However, many of the companies that buy, burn and finance those fuels are publicly traded. They include utilities, automakers, airlines, steelmakers, cement producers and banks. The demand for the same fuel is therefore reachable by a vote even where the producer is not. How far the largest companies are from managing it is measured: As You Sow's Road to Zero Emissions scorecard graded 55 of the largest U.S. companies on net zero progress, and about 84 percent earned a D or F, with 64 percent failing to report the emissions from their suppliers and from the use of their products. The binding constraint on climate policy is organized corporate opposition rather than a shortage of policy designs. InfluenceMap finds 39 percent of assessed US companies and industry associations advocate on climate in ways misaligned with IPCC science. The American Petroleum Institute, AFPM, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers lead that opposition. If every publicly traded corporation pursued decarbonization as a core objective and lobbied for rather than against the policies it needs, climate legislation would face no organized opposition, and the companies asking for it would be the ones carrying it out. Owners have already shown the vote works. A majority vote at ConocoPhillips in 2021 backed targets covering the emissions from the end use of the fuels it extracts. A majority the same year at Phillips 66 asked whether its lobbying matches the goals of the Paris Agreement. State-owned producers such as national oil companies sit outside the lever, yet they respond to the same demand and policy environment listed companies shape. Owners voting their values can therefore deliver most of this outcome.
How this was scoredPivotal
Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- Planetary Health Check 2025, Planetary Boundaries Science Lab / Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, 2025-09-24
- Carbon Majors: 57 fossil fuel and cement producers linked to 80% of global fossil CO2 emissions since the Paris Agreement, InfluenceMap, 2024-04-04
- US Corporate Climate Advocacy Going Into 2025, InfluenceMap, 2024-12
- In historic votes, shareholders demand strong climate action from the U.S. oil and gas industry, Climate Action 100+, 2021-05-12
- 55 Companies Ranked on Net Zero Emissions Reductions, As You Sow, 2022-03-03
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Publishes the Road to Zero Emissions scorecard grading the 100 largest U.S. public companies on net zero progress to support shareholder engagement on climate.
Filed the 2021 ConocoPhillips proposal asking for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emission reduction targets, which won 58 percent support.
58% of ConocoPhillips shareholders vote for Follow This climate proposal, Follow This, 2021-05
Coordinated investor support for climate proposals at U.S. oil and gas companies, including the 2022 Chevron methane measurement proposal.
Shareholders win majority support for climate proposals at Exxon, Chevron, Grist, 2022-05
7 campaigns on record
Directly measure methane emissions using drones, satellites and leak detection and report the results against previously published estimates.
Result: 98 percent in favor
Shareholders win majority support for climate proposals at Exxon, Chevron, Grist, 2022-05
Report how declining fossil fuel demand under the IEA net zero 2050 pathway would affect the company's finances.
Result: 52 percent in favor
Shareholders win majority support for climate proposals at Exxon, Chevron, Grist, 2022-05
Adopt a policy restricting the banks from lending to and underwriting new oil and gas exploration and development projects.
Result: Citigroup 12.8%, Bank of America 11%, Wells Fargo 11% of shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).
we found no documented change at any of the three banks directly attributed to this 2022 vote
Shareholder proposals on climate fail to gain traction at 3 major banks, Banking Dive
Set Paris-Agreement-consistent emissions targets; at ExxonMobil specifically, set targets covering Scope 3 emissions from the use of its products (about 90% of the company's total emissions), which the company had so far declined to do.
Result: 33% of Chevron shareholders and 28% of ExxonMobil shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).
we found no documented change at either company directly attributed to this specific 2022 vote
Set and disclose a plan to reduce all of Chevron's greenhouse gas emissions, including Scope 3 emissions from the use of its products, in line with the Paris Agreement.
Result: 61% of shareholders voted in favor The proposal was precatory (advisory and non-binding).
we found no documented change at Chevron directly attributed to this specific 2021 vote
Set emission reduction targets covering the greenhouse gas emissions of the company's operations and its energy products (Scope 1, 2 and 3).
Result: 58 percent in favor
Company established climate goals following the shareholder vote, according to Follow This.
58% of ConocoPhillips shareholders vote for Follow This climate proposal, Follow This, 2021-05
Engine No. 1, an activist investor holding about 0.02% of Exxon's shares, nominated an independent slate of board candidates and asked shareholders to replace directors with people who had experience managing a profitable transition in the energy industry, arguing the existing board lacked the expertise and independence to manage climate-related business risk and to spend capital with discipline.
Result: Engine No. 1's nominees won 3 of ExxonMobil's 12 board seats (Gregory Goff, Kaisa Hietala, and Alexander Karsner), per ExxonMobil's own June 2, 2021 announcement of preliminary results. Major pension funds including CalPERS, CalSTRS, and the New York State Common Retirement Fund backed the dissident slate.
One year on, ExxonMobil increased Scope 3 emissions disclosure, set more ambitious Scope 1 and 2 targets, shifted from a planned 25% production growth to holding production steady, and added board members with energy-transition experience; Engine No. 1's own team characterized the underlying long-term business strategy, continued heavy spending on new fossil fuel projects (about $30-35 billion a year), and lobbying posture as largely unchanged.
Engine No. 1 wins at least 2 Exxon board seats as activist pushes for climate strategy change, CNBC
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is Doughnut Economics's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.