TotalEnergies suffers investor revolt over climate targets

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A large group of TotalEnergies shareholders have urged the French oil and gas company to accelerate efforts to shift to cleaner energy in an annual meeting marred by protests and clashes between police and climate activists.

More than 30% of investors supported a resolution tabled by Dutch activist shareholder Follow This Total reduce their emissions at a faster rate by 2030.

The rebuke – significant by the common standards of annual shareholder meetings – echoes other calls pressing for quicker transition plans at rivals including Shell. A similar activist motion to Total in 2020 won the support of 17% of investors.

The shareholders’ meetings of major oil companies have become the stage for ever-stronger climate protests both inside and outside the premises.

Total’s meeting in central Paris on Friday took place in a tense atmosphere, with dozens of climate activists attempting to block the entrance, but were dispersed by police using pepper spray and tear gas.

Small groups of protesters later gathered outside the venue under a heavy police presence. They chanted slogans against the Total pipeline project in Uganda and Tanzania and brandished placards targeting the group and the banks that had financed some of the projects.

Total’s chief executive Patrick Pouyanné has lashed out at “grumps” who accused the company of greenwashing as he defended the company’s investments in wind and solar energy, along with an increased focus on petroleum gas as transition fuel.

“We are convinced of the credibility of our climate transition plan,” said Pouyanné. He added that if Total were to suddenly sell oil assets, they would be bought up by less climate-conscious rivals, which would not be in the interests of shareholders or the planet.

Follow This urged Total to do more to reduce its emissions by 2030, especially those known as Scope 3, which covers the carbon emissions produced by a product throughout its entire life cycle. He suggested the company should end new oil and gas projects as a first step.

Pouyanné hit Scope 3, saying there were limits to what the company itself could do to influence what its customers needed. “Do you want to make us responsible for the demand in air transport?” he said.

Like many of its peers, Total has shifted more of its budget towards clean energy. It will spend $5 billion on renewable energy businesses this year, up from more than $4 billion, though most of its $16 to $18 billion investments are devoted to other areas, including oil.

Some investors praised Total for making this shift, but signaled that momentum should continue at a faster pace than the company has thus far indicated.

“The solution lies in the rapid rise of affordable and reliable clean energy,” said Lloyd McAllister, head of sustainable investing at Carmignac. The asset manager voted against Total’s climate targets, on the grounds that they lacked clarity and were not ambitious enough, as well as against the Follow This resolution, saying it was too prescriptive and could lead to unintended consequences.

Pouyanné, who he complained about the rating gap which affects the company because it was listed in Europe rather than the United States, he said Friday that US shareholders made up about 46% of its institutional investors, up from a third four or five years ago. The Frenchman, however, said moving Total’s listing to the US was not an option, in part for political reasons.

ExxonMobil and Chevron are expected to hold shareholder meetings next week.