Big Oil braces for shareholder revolt over climate plans in proxy voting season (US.SHEL) () - 11 mai 2022
In Europe, Norway’s Equinor and Britain’s BP will hold their respective AGMs on Wednesday and Thursday. U.K.-based Shell will hold its annual shareholder meeting on May 24 and France’s TotalEnergies AGM will take place on May 25.
Stateside, Chevron and ExxonMobil will hold their respective AGMs on May 25.
The forthcoming proxy season comes amid intensifying pressure on Big Oil to set short- and medium-term targets in line with the landmark Paris Agreement.
The 2015 accord is widely recognized as critically important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis. Investors at oil majors such as Shell (US.SHEL) , ExxonMobil (US.XOM) and Chevron (US.CVX) voted for climate-related resolutions last year and campaign groups are hoping for more success this month. Nonetheless, Equinor (US.EQNR), BP (US.BP) and Shell have all recommended investors vote against Follow This’ proposals this month.
As recently as 2015, climate scientists had said there was zero chance of surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius in the following five years. However, the likelihood of exceeding this temperature limit was upgraded to 10% in the years between 2017 and 2021, before climbing to nearly 50% for the 2022-2026 period.