Investors ramp up pressure on Big Oil firms to set 2030 climate targets
Source: https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/12/19/oil-climate-investors
Author: Ron Bousso and Sabrina Valle
A group of investors has tabled resolutions urging four of the world’s top oil and gas companies to set broad climate targets for 2030, reviving pressure on the sector after a year that saw governments shift their focus to energy security. Activist group Follow This said it had co-filed the resolutions with six major institutional investors managing $1.3 trillion in assets ahead of the annual general meetings of BP, Chevron, Exxon Mobil and Shell next year. In the resolutions, the investors call on the companies to set targets to reduce by 2030 greenhouse gas emissions including those from fuel sold to customers, known as Scope 3 emissions, which account for the vast majority of the sector’s pollution. Exxon, which does not have Scope 3 targets, has said the way they are calculated is flawed. The methodology has the unintended consequence of passing carbon footprint to someone else, it says – for example, when companies are punished for producing more natural gas that would replace coal, a more polluting fuel. Shell, BP and European peers including TotalEnergies and Eni have set out strategies and targets to slash emissions to net-zero by 2050 by reducing oil and gas output and growing low-carbon and renewable energy businesses.“The focus on Scope 3 by 2030 leaves the oil majors no wiggle room for smokescreens about ‘net zero emissions by 2050’,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal said.