PEOPLES AGM PLATFORM SLAMS TOTAL ENERGIES, OTHERS FOR PRIORITIZING OIL AND GAS INVESTMENTS THAT IS FUELING CLIMATE CRISIS

Wants shareholders to reverse trend at 2023 AGM.

BENIN CITY, NIGERIA. May 25, 2023…. The peoples AGM platform has criticized Total Energies, Eni, and Equinor for their role in prioritizing oil and gas investments that is fueling the climate crisis despite the urgent need to transit to clean, renewable energy, calling on investors and shareholders at Total Energies AGM scheduled for May 26, 2023, to reverse the trend. The group also urged the investors to vote in support of the request from a group of shareholders to allow the Company to set targets “aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement” for Scope 3 indirect emissions related to the use of energy products sold to its customers. The group canvassed support for the French civil society organisations action planned for tomorrow May 26. 2023 at Total Energies head office in France.

The convener of the peoples AGM, David Ugolor who is also the Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), made this known in a press statement issued to newsmen at the platform’s secretariat in Benin City, Edo State. Ugolor clearly stated that “available reports show how in 2023, Total Energies announced record 2022 profits of USD 36.2 billion, which is primarily used to increase investments in fossil fuels and payouts to shareholders, rather than accelerate a just transition towards renewable energy. For every dollar that Total Energies reported spending on ‘low-carbon energies’, which include fossil gas, in 2022, the company spent a combined 8 dollars on investments in oil and gas and on rewarding shareholders with dividends and buy-backs”.

Also, the Co-Chair of the peoples AGM and Executive Director, Indigenous Centre for Energy and Sustainable Development, ICE-SD, Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, explained that “new briefing revealed that Total Energies approved more number of new oil and gas expansion in 2022 among international oil & gas majors. By its own reporting, Total Energies as a company generated more worldwide carbon pollution than its home country of France”.

Taiwo Otitolaye, the Co-Chair of the peoples AGM and National Coordinator, Publish What You Pay Campaign, Nigeria, lamented that “neither Total Energies, Eni, nor Equinor comes anywhere close to the bare minimum for alignment with the Paris Agreement, as revealed Oil Change International benchmark, which requires rapid, deep cuts in oil and gas production and sales that need to happen within this decade. No oil and gas company can credibly claim to be aligned with the 1.5°C limit without taking immediate action to phase out fossil fuels”. 

It could be recalled that the peoples AGM, a shadow AGM to that of oil majors, was convened in Abuja, Nigeria on May 17, 2023, and attended by 68 environmental justice activists drawn from across Nigeria including the Niger Delta region and other emerging oil States, where it issued a ten-point resolution. The resolution among other things demanded that oil companies including Total Energies, SHELL, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron should take responsibility for loss and damage in the Niger Delta as recommended by COP27. The resolution also hailed the Church of England for its commitment to vote against all directors at the upcoming AGMs in response to their failure to meet climate change objectives and charged other investors to do the same.

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