Financial Times | SEC will force oil and gas producer group to hold vote on tighter emissions targets.
US regulators will force Occidental Petroleum to hold a shareholder vote on tighter emissions targets, rejecting a petition by a company that has touted its climate goals as among the most ambitious in the oil and gas sector. Occidental had asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to throw out a motion calling for it to set short, medium and long-term emissions goals consistent with the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming. The company argued it had “substantially implemented” the proposal through targets already in place.
“It’s telling that the SEC basically states that even Occidental — which has some targets — is not Paris consistent. I hope the investors realise that these companies won’t change of their own accord — that they need to vote.”
Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This
But the SEC rejected this. “Based on the information you have presented, it appears that the company’s public disclosures do not substantially implement the proposal,” the SEC wrote in a letter seen by the FT dated March 15. […]
Follow This, a Netherlands-based activist group with stakes in oil producers in Europe and the US, filed the motion. The campaigners also submitted similar motions with ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhilips and Phillips 66, which did not contest them.
