HOUSTON (Reuters) – Shareholders of Exxon Mobil and Chevron on Wednesday ignored calls for tougher measures to mitigate climate change, overwhelmingly rejecting more than a dozen climate-related proposals at their meetings Annual General Meetings (GA).

The results of these votes confirmed the two largest American oil companies in their resistance to the pressure exerted by certain groups of investors, who invite them to follow the example of their European competitors by accepting stricter objectives in terms of reduction of emissions.

The Shell, BP and TotalEnergies groups have recently seen their general meetings disrupted by environmental protesters who are asking them to go further in their climate strategy.

The AGMs of Exxon and Chevron were held by videoconference, which prevented the holding of similar protests.

“There isn’t a single big oil company that really wants to make the transition,” said Mark van Baal, founder of activist group Follow This, pointing to the big groups’ willingness to “hold on” to fossil fuels the most. long as possible.

Follow This, which represents some 9,500 shareholders of oil and gas companies, had asked Exxon to set medium-term goals for reducing emissions from fuels burned by customers, defined as “scope 3”.

The shareholders of Exxon, which is the only one of the five major Western oil majors not to have a target in this area, rejected this resolution.

Overall, Exxon shareholders rejected all 12 proposals filed by security holders, the majority of which focused on climate-related issues.

Those at Chevron also rejected proposals for a Scope 3 emissions reduction target, the creation of a decarbonization risk committee on the board and a report on the impact of shutdowns. facilities and energy transitions.

(Report Sabrina Valle and Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Mrinalika Roy and Sourasis Bose in Bangalore; Augustin Turpin, edited by Blandine Hénault)

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