3 Mar 2017

In an industry first… [Chevron] has warned it could face legal action over climate change. [The company]…admitted it could be the subject of “governmental investigations and, potentially, private litigation” because of its role in causing global warming. And the firm added that regulations designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions might also render the “extraction of the company’s oil and gas resources economically infeasible”…Environmentalists suggested the decision to admit the threat to the company could be a reaction to legal case brought last year against Exxon Mobil… ClientEarth, a group of activist environmental lawyers…said it was “significant” that Chevron had formally recognised the risks…[and] noted that Chevron was accepting that investors’ money could end up being lost as regulations restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Greenpeace UK's senior climate adviser…noted Chevron’s position had shifted from “barely acknowledging the dangers of climate change to being the first oil major to explicitly warn investors about the material risk from potential climate lawsuits…” in just a few years, [certainly because of] the combined effect of the Paris Agreement and the Exxon investigation…