Shareholders urge Shell to set climate targets

LONDON (AFP): A group of shareholders in British oil major Shell have submitted a resolution for the upcoming annual shareholders meeting that would force the company to commit to greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Twenty-seven investors, including one of Europe’s largest asset managers, Amundi — with 3.4 percent of Shell’s shares — co-filed the resolution according to activist investor organisation Follow This, which launched the initiative aimed at forcing Shell into respecting the Paris Accord.

Follow This submitted a similar climate resolution at last year’s general shareholders meeting in May, which was supported by 20 percent of shareholders.

This year’s resolution calls on management “to align its medium-term emissions reduction targets… with the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement: to limit global warming to well below two degrees C (Celsius) above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C.”

The resolution would leave it up to the board to define the strategy to achieve that target.

The date for Shell’s annual shareholder meeting has yet to be set.

“Large shareholders hold the key to tackling the climate crisis with their votes at shareholders meetings,” said Follow This founder Mark van Baal.

“Shell will only change if more shareholders vote for change.”

Follow This said Shell appeared to backslide in 2023 on its climate targets.

In June, the company said oil production would remain stable until 2030, while in 2021 it had set a goal of reducing it by one or two percent per year.

Shell’s chief executive Wael Sawan said the following month that cutting gas and oil output would be “dangerous and irresponsible” because it could further lift energy bills and worsen the cost-of-living crisis.

Sawan said the world still had a desperate need for oil and gas as renewable energy production hadn’t developed fast enough to replace the fossil fuels.