A group of investors with $1.1tn in assets under management has joined climate activist group Follow This in asking TotalEnergies shareholders to push for more ambitious targets on emissions cuts.
“To achieve the goal of (the) Paris (climate deal), the world has to almost halve emissions by 2030, but TotalEnergies has no plan to drive down emissions this decade,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal said.
“These climate resolutions at Big Oil will show which investors are serious about resolving the climate crisis and which prefer to just talk about it.”
The investor group co-filing the latest resolution represents 1.5 per cent of TotalEnergies’ shares.
Follow This wants the companies to commit to absolute emissions cuts by 2030, rather than intensity-based targets, including Scope 3 emissions from the combustion of the fuels they sell.
Measuring emissions by intensity means a company can technically increase its fossil fuel output and overall emissions while using offsets or adding renewable energy or biofuels to its product mix.
Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent from 2019 levels by 2030 to have any hope of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
BP and Shell have already recommended that its shareholders vote against the Follow This resolutions.
The last time TotalEnergies shareholders voted on a Follow This resolution, in 2020, the activists received 17 per cent of the votes.
TotalEnergies’ climate strategy was approved by about 90 per cent of shareholder votes in 2021 and 2022.
Source: E&T
