Cut Emissions, Stop relying on false solutions, CSOs Urges Chevron

…..Wants investors to vote against the Directors at tomorrow’s AGM.

BENIN CITY, NIGERIA. May 30, 2023… The Peoples AGM, a Pan-Nigeria Civil Society platform campaigning for the enforcement of Paris Climate Agreement has urged Chevron, an oil company operating in Nigeria to cut emissions at source and stop relying on false solutions.

Convener of the Peoples AGM, the Rev. David Ugolor who is also the Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), made the call in a statement issued in Benin City following a new investigation into Chevron’s climate pledge published by The Guardian, which found out that the fossil-fuel company relies on “junk” carbon offsets and “unviable” technologies, which do little to offset its vast greenhouse gas emissions and in some cases, causing communities harm.

While frowning at Chevron’s business model that is not prepared for low-carbon transition, Ugolor urged the Directors to vote against all the shareholders at tomorrow’s Annual General Meeting of the company.,

Chevron had said that it “aspires” to achieve net zero upstream emissions by 2050. To do this, it is mostly relying on carbon offset schemes – environmental projects meant to cancel out its greenhouse gas emissions – and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. However, New research by Corporate Accountability, a non-profit, transnational corporate watchdog, has found that 93% of the offsets Chevron bought and counted towards its climate targets from voluntary carbon markets between 2020 and 2022 were too environmentally problematic to be classified as anything other than worthless or junk.

“These two new reports reinforce Chevron’s costly misalignment with a timely energy transition, underlining the need for votes holding directors accountable. These new analyses from Corporate Accountability and others further detail the wide gap between Chevron Corporation’s business activities and the goals of the Paris Agreement due to the company’s counterproductive policy engagement and dysfunctional targets”, Ugolor averred.

“Since almost half of Chevron’s ‘worthless’ offsets focused on forests, plantations or large dams, are also linked to alleged social and environmental harms mostly in communities in the global south, which are also often the most affected by the climate crisis, we urge the directors to vote against all the shareholders at the forth coming AGM, Ugolor added.

“We are convinced that Chevron business model is not prepared for a low-carbon transition because the company’s climate policy engagement is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal,” Ugolor concluded.

Recall that at the Global Standard on Responsible Climate Lobbying (‘the Global Standard’), launched in March 2022 by a group of investors under the Climate Action 100+ process, including AP7, BNP Paribas Asset Management and Church of England Pensions Board, who sets out 14 indicators to clarify exactly what investors expect from companies regarding their disclosure, governance and oversight processes to ensure company alignment between their climate policy engagement and the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement. InfluenceMap’s analysis suggests that Chevron has not assigned responsibility for board level oversight of its climate policy engagement.

The Climate Action 100+ process, is a voluntary investor initiative made up of 700 investors responsible for over $68 trillion in assets under management, working to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.

For further information, please contact thepeoplesagmplatform@gmail.com and follow us on twitter: @agm_the  @aneejnigeria   @ighodi