(VitalNews.org) – So-called climate activists have thrown food on priceless museum paintings and glued themselves to museum floors to “protest oil,” and they turned their sights on Shell’s annual investor meeting on May 23.
When the meeting began, activists started shouting slogans and chastising “banks and pension funds” that invest any of their money in oil and fossil fuel energy companies. For over an hour, the dozen or so protestors disrupted the meeting with chants and sarcastic singing like, “Go to hell, Shell, and don’t you come back no more.”
A similar scene played out last year at the company’s annual shareholder convention.
Shell chairman Andrew Mackenzie at first tried to reason with the disruptors, telling them that Shell “heard” them, and asking one protestor to sit down. He continued trying to engage, telling protestors he’d repeatedly heard their complaints and that a sit-down conversation would be more productive.
Such protestors do not usually seem to want civilized dialogue. Some of the “activists” at the event tried to come onto the stage while security formed a line to block them from confronting company executives. Light physical fighting broke out as security guards eventually removed the protestors from the building.
Protestors claimed Shell was not doing enough to fight climate change to get to the company’s promised “zero emissions” by the year 2050. It is not clear that it is even possible for such companies to reach “zero emissions.”
A hot-button issue before Shell investors was a resolution put forward by an activist investor with the group Follow This. The resolution called for more extreme emissions reduction activity to be put in place by the year 2030. Shell’s board is not in favor and is asking shareholders to vote it down.
Shell CEO Wael Sawan criticized the proposal, accusing Follow This of being single-minded and mistakenly believing that attacking oil companies like his will somehow make it possible for the world to “quickly and easily” replace oil and other fossil fuels.
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