By Benjamin Mallet and America Hernandez
PARIS (Reuters) – French riot police used tear gas and pepper spray against several hundred climate activists seeking to block shareholders from accessing oil major TotalEnergies’ annual shareholder meeting on Friday.
Scuffles between police and protesters broke out ahead of the meeting, where investors are expected to vote on climate resolutions put forward by activist shareholders urging accelerated cuts to the amount of planet-warming gases produced by the company’s oil and gas business.
Shareholders were escorted through the protesters by police and required to leave their bags at the door and place phones in sealed satchels for the duration of the meeting.
“The science is clear but Total is ignoring it,” read a banner held up by demonstrators, including Greenpeace activists.
Climate activists are intensifying demands on oil companies for tougher targets on greenhouse gas emissions, with protesters trying to storm the stage of Shell’s shareholder meeting earlier this week and also disrupting BP’s AGM last month.
Investors are set to vote on a climate resolution urging accelerated cuts under the French oil major’s greenhouse gas emission reduction programme. The resolution was put forth by climate activist group Follow This and 17 institutional investors with a total 1.1 trillion euros under management.
TotalEnergies’ board opposes the resolution, which calls for the company to commit to steeper absolute emissions cuts by 2030 as opposed to intensity targets which can fall as a company adds renewable assets. It also demands TotalEnergies include in its 2030 targets so-called Scope 3 emissions, which are released when the fuels the company sells are burned by customers, such as in planes or cars.
The French company will instead urge investors to approve its own internal climate plan, focuses on more modest emissions cuts from gases at its directly owned facilities and does not envisage a major overall reduction in client-produced downstream planet-warming gases by 2030.
Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 43% from 2019 levels by 2030 to stand a chance of meeting the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
(Reporting by Benjamin Mallet and America Hernandez, editing by Silvia Aloisi and Richard Lough)
