USA – 58% of shareholders in ConocoPhillips have voted for a proposal by Follow This to encourage the US oil company to reduce all of its emissions, in the highest show of support on a vote of its kind. This sets a standard for the oil industry in the US and sets a high bar for the upcoming votes at Equinor, BP, P66, Shell, and Chevron.
Today was the first opportunity for investors to vote on emission reductions at Big Oil in the US since the Paris Climate Agreement. A majority of investors seized this opportunity to urge Conoco to reduce the emissions of its products (Scope 3). At the company’s AGM today, 58% of shareholders voted for the Follow This climate targets proposal (proposal 5), the company announced during its virtual AGM.
Scope3
‘Conoco and its shareholders are at the same stage as was Shell in 2017’, said Mark van Baal from Follow This. In 2017 Shell rejected the same resolution with the same argument, that it did not want to take responsibility for the emissions of its products (Scope 3). By the end of 2017, Shell had set ambitions for all emissions, including Scope 3.
BP, Equinor, and Total followed the same pattern: first they refused, but after a substantial body of investors voted for the Follow This climate resolutions, they crossed the Rubicon by setting emission reduction targets for all emissions, including the emissions of their products, so-called Scope 3 emissions.
