With the Rockefellers, the founding family behind ExxonMobil, embarrassing the company by calling for Rex Tillerson to hand over part of his responsibilities as both chairman and chief executive and for a management shake-up that could change its attitude towards climate change, it might be a sign of shifting ground when it comes to global warming.

Still, in the case of ExxonMobil, you shouldn't hold your breath. The Rockefellers are not controlling shareholders, ExxonMobil is way ahead of the pack in terms of profitability and shareholders don't like change.

Still, it's an interesting development in light of a new study showing that most senior finance and risk managers believe global climate change will require changes to their business models in the years ahead, and 59 per cent said risks stemming from weather volatility meant that the impact on their financial performance could be "significant, but over half said their companies were unprepared for it. Less than half said their companies had tried working out how much exposure they had to the weather, and only 10 percent had used weather options or futures to hedge that exposure.

The survey was done by the CME Group and Storm Exchange , who would both be talking up their books. Still, the data is a concern.