PRESS RELEASE
Chevron “grew [production] to a record 3.10 million barrels per day” and “added proved reserves” the company boasts in a press release about its Fourth Quarter 2021 Results, published today.
“Chevron is reporting as if there is no Paris Climate Agreement, and no shareholder majority that both request emissions reductions,” responds Mark van Baal of Follow This, the group of green shareholders that landed a majority vote for its climate resolution at the AGM in May 2021. “There’s no room for growing fossil fuel production in the Paris Accord.”
The IPCC could not be more clear: ‘unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach’ (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Press Release, 9 August 2021).
Chevron only briefly mentions “progress to advance its lower carbon future” and announced “investment to approximately $10 billion through 2028” (in 7 years, Chevron’s capital and exploratory expenditures in 2021 were $11.7 billion) without setting targets to reduce its total emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) in the near future.
At the shareholders’ meeting in May 2021, a 61% majority of shareholders requested Chevron to decrease product emissions by voting for the Follow This climate proposal.
In May 2022, the climate proposal requesting Paris-aligned targets will come to vote again (pending SEC approval).
Comfort zone
Chevron’s proud emphasis on “record free cash flow” and “dividends and share repurchases” shows that Chevron’s executives think that high oil prices provide extra cushioning for their comfort zone – turning hydrocarbons into petrodollar.
They seem to have forgotten that a majority of their shareholders asked them to step out of their comfort zone and drive the energy transition (by voting for the Follow This climate resolution).
