By Shadia Nasralla and Ron Bousso
LONDON (Reuters) -A shareholder resolution urging BP to set tougher climate targets was rejected by investors on Thursday, although it enjoyed more support than a year earlier after the energy company rowed back on plans to cut oil and gas output.
The resolution filed by activist group Follow This, which the board urged voters to oppose, won the support of 16.75% of votes at the annual general meeting in London, according to preliminary results.
That compared with 14.9% last year but was below the 20.6% backing it received in 2021.
BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney in February rowed back on plans to slash oil and gas output and carbon emissions, angering climate activists but spurring a share price surge.
The company still aims for emissions to reach net zero by 2050.
The annual general meeting in London was interrupted several times by climate protestors, with several being carried out by security.
“Stop drilling for fossil fuels,” one protestor said as Looney started his address to the AGM.
Follow This founder Mark van Baal told Reuters the result was “a shareholder rebellion”.
“It’s a very strong signal because if you look at all the other resolutions it’s just a few percent that don’t vote with management,” van Baal told Reuters after the annual general meeting.
Speaking at the AGM, van Baal said Looney was “misleading shareholders” by claiming that BP’s strategy was aligned with U.N.-backed targets set in a Paris conference in 2015 to slash global emissions by the end of the century.
Shareholders also approved the re-appointment of Chairman Helge Lund by a majority of 90.43% after several investors said they would oppose it to protest BP’s energy transition strategy.
“Oil and gas will be needed for a long time to come,” Lund told the audience.
Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 43% by 2030 from 2019 levels to have any hope of meeting the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
(Reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Ron Bousso; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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