> “Did ExxonMobil commit securities fraud by denying climate change?”
No one should deny climate change because it happens as surely as the Earth revolves around the Sun.
However, man-made Climate Change is a fraud and Exxon should not be disclosing any risk to a fraud.
If that fraud is utilized as the driving excuse to pass legislation which impacts business, the fraud is relevant. However, quantifying the risk of the impact of fraud is nearly impossible because of the questionable sanity of its perpetrators, and the chances of accurately quantifying such risk far less than predicting asteroid impacts or the zombie apocalypse.
Under the circumstances, I fail to see how Exxon/Mobil could be held accountable for their inability to predict the actions of lunatics in large numbers, other than to take measures to secure their facilities and mitigate any foreseeable physical impact.