Shell Pulls Climate Change Resolution from AGM

Royal Dutch Shell announced May 17 that it will propose the withdrawal of a shareholder resolution calling for the company to change its climate policy at its upcoming annual general meeting on May 21.

The move follows an agreement with activist shareholder group Follow This, which had put forward Resolution 22 in December, urging Shell to drastically reduce its spending on fossil fuel. Shell’s board opposed the resolution.

However, in April, following talks with Shell’s largest Dutch investors, Follow This, which had filed similar motions at the previous three Shell AGMs, decided to withdraw the resolution as Shell set concrete targets to cut its carbon footprint.

The activist group “decided to give Shell time to bring climate ambition into line with the Paris Climate Agreement,” founder Mark van Baal said in a statement at the time.

“Shell welcomed the announcement on April 7, 2019 by Follow This of its intention to withdraw the resolution,” the company said in its May 17 statement. “Follow This has now collected written support to request the withdrawal of the shareholder resolution from all of the shareholders who originally requisitioned the resolution.”

Follow This has also sought to use shareholder resolutions to push BP, Equinor and Chevron into more urgent action on climate change.