Investors, including activist group Follow This, filed a resolution to pressure TotalEnergies SE to vote for more ambitious emissions targets when the company holds its annual general meeting next month.
The resolution, backed by 17 institutional investors from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, calls for the French energy giant to reduce its indirect carbon emissions, according to a statement from Follow This.
Specifically, it wants TotalEnergies to align its 2030 target for so-called Scope 3 emissions, those targets linked to the use of its products by its customers, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, he said . The company’s general assembly is scheduled for May 26.
The move is the latest example of activist investors increasing pressure for big oil companies to take a tougher stance on curbing climate change. Continue This said it has tabled similar motions for the AGMs of Shell Plc, BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp.
In Europe, in particular, the energy crisis exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to greater reliance on fossil fuels, at least in the short term. Some Big Oil companies have backed away from previous plans to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
The Paris agreement aims to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees. A UN-backed panel determined last month that “deep, rapid and sustained” cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are needed to keep climate change within habitable limits.
“To meet the Paris target, the world must almost halve emissions by 2030, but TotalEnergies has no plans to cut emissions this decade,” said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This. “These Big Oil climate resolutions will show which investors are serious about solving the climate crisis and which prefer to just talk about it.”
Total plans to reduce net emissions from its operations, called Scope 1 and 2, to 25 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030, from 40 million tonnes last year. It says its Scope 3 emissions will be below 400 million tonnes by the end of the decade, compared with 389 million tonnes in 2022. Here’s how the French giant plans to increase sales of liquefied natural gas while reducing sales of petroleum products.
–With the help of William Mathis.
