Biggest Fund Challenges Exxon And Chevron On Climate
The biggest stock market investor urges ExxonMobil and Chevron to do better in tackling climate change.
The Norwegian wealth fund wants US oil companies to decrease their emissions. The fund holds $1.4 trillion assets. They want more strict emission reduction targets. These companies are in the United States. The fund said this on Friday.
The climate activist group, Follow This, proposed motions for the company annual shareholder meetings next Wednesday. It was said that Follow This would receive support from the company. However, ExxonMobil and Chevron are asking shareholders to reject Follow This' motions.
This organization wants companies to do more. BP, Shell, and TotalEnergies are important. They need to cut more emissions. This includes the gases that come from using their products. Like gas, fuel, and natural gas. This needs to happen by 2030.
The group wants the companies to set new targets. The new targets would match the Paris climate agreement. The agreement wants to keep the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The group thinks the new targets would be better.
The founder of Follow This, Mark van Baal, spoke to CNN. He said that the Norwegian fund had a big responsibility. He was surprised that the fund hadn't done the same thing to European energy firms. He talked about shareholder meetings.
"They are telling Shell, BP and Total that they don't need to reduce their emissions in the next ten years. But, next year they should fix it," he said.
At the recent shareholder meetings of BP and Shell, the fund did not support activists' proposals. The meetings were held last month and last week.
The fund's chief corporate governance officer is Carine Smith Ihenacho. On Friday, she told the Financial Times that BP and Shell have good scope 3 targets and transition plans.
On its website, the fund stated that it planned to vote with TotalEnergies against activist proposals. The vote would take place during the company's annual shareholder meeting on Friday. The proposals were related to "scope 3".
Reportedly, French riot police prevented climate protestors from entering a TotalEnergies shareholders meeting in Paris. The protestors numbered in the hundreds. They wanted to prevent shareholders from attending.
ExxonMobil sent a letter to shareholders last month. The letter said the company has not set "scope 3" targets. ExxonMobil thinks that setting these targets would make oil and gas companies sell their assets. This would reduce the products that society needs.
We are determined to lessen greenhouse gas emissions, says the company.
Chevron wants to cut down on its carbon emissions by 5% within the next 5 years. They're aiming to achieve that goal using a 2016 baseline and targeting "scope 3" emissions, which is quite important. Despite this, they're telling shareholders to say no to activist proposals.
Chevron told shareholders in a letter that the proposal would mean making their business smaller.
CNN asked for ExxonMobil and Chevron's response to Norway's wealth fund voting intentions. Norway's wealth fund gets its money from oil and gas and has shares in lots of companies in many countries. It has $790 billion in equity holdings. ExxonMobil and Chevron didn't respond right away.
The newest fund data claims it has a 0.86% part in Chevron and a 1.13% part in ExxonMobil.
On Friday, the fund said that Chevron CEO Mike Wirth and ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods should resign as chairmen of their companies' boards. The fund thinks that two different people should do the top jobs.
The fund stated on its website that the board must be impartial when making decisions about the company and shouldn't rely on management.
