TotalEnergies is preparing for a general meeting under high tension


Logo of TotalEnergies, October 5, 2022 (AFP / Sameer Al-DOUMY)

Clashes between police and demonstrators for the climate broke out on Friday morning, with forceful use of tear gas, near the Parisian hall where the Annual General Meeting of TotalEnergies is to be held.

After BP and Shell, it is the French hydrocarbon giant TotalEnergies which is preparing for an electric assembly, targeted by a coalition of associations which threatens to block it, but also by some of its shareholders who disagree with its climate policy. .

“The GA must be held”, we repeated Friday morning on the side of TotalEnergies, while the first shareholders arrived in dribs and drabs. “We will not let them go”, assured Marie Cohuet, spokesperson for the Alternatiba association, for whom the company “embodies the worst of what is done in terms of exploitation of populations and the planet” .

At dawn, dozens of climate demonstrators tried to enter the stretch of street passing in front of the Salle Pleyel, in the beautiful districts of Paris.

A dozen of them, who had sat in front of the entrance, were dislodged by the security forces who, after three warnings in less than a minute by loudspeaker, threw tear gas in the middle of the group.

Demonstrators nevertheless remained around the Salle Pleyel, about a hundred on each side of the section of the street blocked by roadblocks of police and gendarmerie trucks.

This meeting comes at the end of a stormy AGM season, during which actions have multiplied against the big groups against a backdrop of staggering profits: together, the majors BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies show more than $40 billion in profits this quarter, after a great 2022.

A sign of the expected tensions, TotalEnergies has banned shareholders and journalists from using their mobile phones, forcing them to leave certain personal effects at the entrance.

The group wants above all to avoid the chaotic scenario of last year when NGO activists prevented shareholders from entering the AG.

The authorities expect the presence of 200 to 400 people who “absolutely want to prevent the holding of the GA”, according to a police source.

“Total’s GA will not take place”, warned at the end of April in a 350.org forum, Alternatiba, Friends of the Earth, ANV-COP21, Attac, Greenpeace, Scientists in Rebellion and XR. “This general meeting plans to perpetuate the oil company’s strategy: ever more fossil projects and an unfair distribution of superprofits which fuels climatic and social injustice”, they denounced.

– CEO salary –

Among the hot topics, the nearly 1.5 million individual shareholders, present or online, are being called to vote on an advisory resolution from the activist shareholder organization Follow This, which primarily tackles indirect CO2.

In other words, those related to the use of oil by its customers in cars or for heating (“scope 3” in carbon accounting), i.e. 85% of its carbon footprint.

The coalition of shareholders is asking it to align its emission reduction targets with the 2015 Paris Agreement, in order to limit global warming to +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.

Among these 17 investors, who hold nearly 1.5% of TotalEnergies, are La banque PostaleAM, Edmond de Rotschild AM, La Financière de l’Échiquier.

The group recommends voting against, judging the resolution “contrary to the interests” of TotalEnergies, “of its shareholders and its customers”.

The major will nevertheless promote its efforts for the climate and calls on its shareholders to “vote in favor” of its own climate resolution.

This official strategy focuses mainly on its direct emissions, resulting from its operations and those linked to the energy it consumes (scopes known as “scope 1 and 2”).

Even if the group does not plan to drastically reduce its direct emissions in the decade, it intends to devote a third of its investments to low-carbon energies and reach 100 GW of renewable electricity capacity by 2030.

Its CEO Patrick Pouyanné, in an interview with La Croix on Wednesday, rejects the criticisms, and explains that he must in particular meet the growing demand from developing countries.

“No, TotalEnergies cannot reduce the demand for oil on its own,” he insists, calling for a focus on “the end of coal” instead.

The group is present in numerous liquefied natural gas and oil projects, in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Papua and Uganda, with the controversial Eacop heated pipeline project which has become a mediatised symbol of the fight against oil.

This controversy is in addition to many others for TotalEnergies, criticized for its record profit of 20.5 billion dollars (19.12 billion euros) in 2022, its taxes in France or the salary of the CEO.

A 10% increase in his remuneration for 2023 is also on the agenda of the GA.

tll-nal-ys-cho/uh/sr

© 2023 AFP

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