CLIMATE CHANGE: Peoples AGM Platform Faults Total Energy, Others Over Investments That Fuel Crisis
CLIMATE CHANGE: Peoples AGM Platform Faults Total Energy, Others Over Investments That Fuel Crisis
By: Femi Mustapha
The Peoples AGM platform has criticized Total Energies, Eni, and Equinor for their role in prioritizing oil and gas investments that are fueling the climate crisis despite the urgent need to transition to clean, renewable energy.
The convener of the Peoples AGM, David Ugolor, stated this in a press statement made available to the media in Kaduna yesterday.
Rev. Ugolor, who is also the Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), called on investors and shareholders at Total Energies scheduled AGM 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 organization’s action planned for tomorrow at Total Energies’ head office in France.
Similarly, the Co-Chair of the Peoples AGM and Executive Director of Indigenous Centre for Energy and Sustainable Development, ICE-SD, Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, explained that “new briefing revealed that Total Energies approved a greater number of new oil and gas expansions 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 of 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 by 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 limits without taking immediate action to phase out fossil fuels.”
It could be recalled that the Peoples AGM, a shadow AGM to that of the 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.
