Though oil companies do a lot more than other businesses to contribute to global warming, Shell thinks it’s doing just enough to fight global warming. Ahead of its annual meeting next month, its notice document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday is advising shareholders to vote down a proposal that would have it bolstering its efforts to fight climate change.
The proposal calls for Shell to formally align its environment goals with those of the Paris Climate Agreement (keeping global warming to well below 2°C and ideally to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels) and incorporate so-called “scope 3” greenhouse emissions in those goals. It suggests that Shell’s current strategy “does not sufficiently demonstrate how it will reach these targets.”
Shell’s board of directors responded by saying that explicitly going along with the Paris plan could have the “opposite effect” of fighting climate change because doing so would mean giving up revenue that could be used in clean technology like its growing network of electric vehicle chargers.
Scope 3 emissions targets concern the emissions of a company’s customers, the means of transportation it uses to get its products to those customers, and investments it makes in pursuit of climate change mitigation. Last month, Shell rolled back its so-called scope 3 greenhouse gas reduction targets to 15% to 20% below 2021 levels instead of a hard 20%.
In its resolution voting advisement, Shell’s directors also said that the company “is not accountable for customers’ need for transport and power usage across the world. Such a representation of accountability delays the energy transition by being unrealistic about the role of the supply side of the energy system.”
Follow This, an environmental activist group that helped push a vote for the proposal, said in a statement that “the board of Shell lacks the imagination to see that the company has the capital and market-making capabilities to replace fossil fuels with clean energy.”