Shell shareholders join forces to demand climate targets in line with the Paris agreement

He recalls that “Shell has not improved its climate objectives”and that its new general director “seems to be going backwards on climate action”. A group of shareholders of the hydrocarbon giant Shell will submit a resolution for the general meeting, in order to force the group to define an objective for reducing its emissions in accordance with the Paris agreement, according to a press release published Monday January 15.

The shareholder activist organization Follow This is behind this initiative. She had already proposed a climate resolution to the vote of shareholders at the general meeting in May 2023, receiving 20% ​​of votes in favor. This year, the shareholder group’s resolution provides that Shell “aligns its objectives for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, including those linked to the use of its products (Scope 3), in the medium term with the objective of the Paris Agreement: limiting global warming to 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels and continue efforts to limit the increase in temperatures to 1.5 degrees”. The text plans to let the board of directors develop a strategy to achieve these objectives.

By involving 27 investors in filing the resolution, Follow This founder Mark Van Baal hopes that other shareholders will follow suit and vote in favor of the text. According to him, “Large shareholders hold the key to tackling the climate crisis through their votes at general meetings.” For Shell’s board of directors, the Follow This resolution, almost identical to last year’s, is “unrealistic and simplistic”would have “negative consequences for [ses] consumers” and would be “contrary to the interests of the company and [ses] shareholders”. Shell assures that the group will soon publish an update of its energy transition strategy. In June, the group announced that its oil production would remain “stable” until 2030, after presenting reduction targets of 1 to 2% per year in 2021.