A group of activists withdraws its resolution challenging Shell's climate policy

By Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) – A group of activists has announced that it is withdrawing a resolution from shareholder calling Royal Dutch Shell to change its climate policy after the oil and gas company has reached a broad agreement with the oil companies. investors on the subject.

The Anglo-Dutch energy company received little praise from investors and environmental activists in December when it came up with plans to set high-level targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and badociate them with executive compensation.

Nevertheless, the Dutch group of activists Follow This filed several days later a resolution asking Shell to significantly reduce its expenditure on fossil fuels.

Shell's board of directors objected to the resolution, which was due to be voted at the annual general meeting in The Hague in May.

Following discussions with six of the top ten Dutch investors, including Aegon and NN Investment Partners, Follow This has decided to withdraw its resolution after filing similar proposals at the previous three Shell AGMs.

"So we decided to give Shell the time it needed to align this climate ambition with the Paris climate agreement," said founder Mark van Baal in a statement.

Follow This said that Shell's ambition to halve global emissions by 2050 was to be "refined" to align with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Follow This also targets Shell's competitors, Equinor Chevron, with shareholder resolutions.

(Report by Ron Bousso, edited by Susan Fenton)