To the cries of “and one and two and three degrees, for Patrick Pouyanné [le PDG de TotalEnergies] »a group of students took over the podium of an amphitheater where a Climate Day round table was held organized by the HEC Paris business school on its Jouy-en-Josas campus (Yvelines), on the theme of energy transition, Tuesday 23 May.
According to the program of the daya dozen representatives of companies (Shell, TotalEnergies, etc.), experts and institutions such as the French Observatory of Economic Conditions and the International Energy Agency were invited to this day of conferences.
“It must be said that it was necessary to dare”
“We, HEC students, demonstrated with joy and conviction our disagreement with their presence”explained the “HEC antigreenwashing committee” in its press release sent after the action, assuring that “climaticide companies are no longer welcome at HEC Paris”. They were ” thirty “ students to take part, one of them, Augustin de la Brosse, told Agence France-Presse.
In video of about eight minutesbroadcast by the organizers of the action, we see the students carrying out a parody of a film festival − called the “greenwashing festival” − which aims to reward the company that has “made the most superficial climate commitments and who spoke the most disconnected from his real activity”. The students named Shell, TotalEnergies, Société Générale and HEC Paris.
“To explain to us how to save the planet, by inviting Shell, TotalEnergies, and Société Générale, it must be said that we had to dare”, launched Augustin de la Brosse, a second-year Master’s student, in front of an audience of several dozen people. The group unfurled a banner with the message “Stop EACOP”named after the controversial oil megaproject that TotalEnergies is developing in Uganda and Tanzania.
The giants of the oil and gas sector are under increasing pressure from certain shareholders and environmental associations to stop any new hydrocarbon projects, which are polluting and harmful to the climate.
Like Shell on Tuesday, TotalEnergies is preparing to experience in turn an eventful annual general meeting on Friday, May 26, targeted by calls from several NGOs to block the event bringing together the shareholders of the French energy group.