By Victoria Klesty, Benjamin Mallet and America Hernandez
(Reuters) – Pressure mounted on the oil majors on Friday as Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund announced it would vote against the CEOs of Chevron and Exxon and French police attacked climate protesters during the general meeting of shareholders of TotalEnergies.
Along with peers BP and Shell, the companies face a vocal minority of investors demanding faster emissions cuts as a majority of shareholders back management to reap the benefits of record oil and gas profits.
Norway’s $1.4 trillion wealth fund, the world’s largest stock investor, said on Friday it would vote against the CEOs of Chevron and ExxonMobil and management on the emissions-related proposals at their meetings on Friday. May 31st.
The fund, which owned 0.86% of Chevron and 1.13% of Exxon at the end of 2022, has previously voted against director reappointments and said it would, as in previous years, support the Follow This climate activists’ resolution calling for faster change. emission reductions in American companies.
However, he will vote against Follow This at Friday’s TotalEnergies shareholders’ meeting, where French riot police clashed with protesters trying to block entry to the French company’s annual general meeting (AGM).
Follow This presented its TotalEnergies resolution alongside 17 institutional investors with a total of €1.1 trillion under management. The last time Follow This filed a resolution with the French group in 2020, it received 17% support.
This echoes his results at BP, where a similar resolution in April received slightly more support than last year at around 17% and Shell where support this month remained stable at around 20%.
Follow This asks companies to align their targets with the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement goal of keeping warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
Scientists say the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by around 43% below 2019 levels by 2030 to have a chance of meeting the target.
So far, the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies have set targets that campaigners say are nowhere near far enough.
The board of influential shareholders ISS recommended voting in favor of Follow This at the AGM of TotalEnergies, contrary to the negative recommendations for the resolution of Shell and BP.
(Writing by Shadia Nasralla; editing by Barbara Lewis)
