By Nerijus Adomaitis and Simon Jessop
OSLO/LONDON, April 24 (Reuters) - Norwegian oil and gascompany Equinor will revise its climate targets nextyear and assess its investments against U.N.-backed goalsfollowing talks with major investors.
Oil companies, among the largest emitters of greenhousegases, are coming under increased shareholder pressure to havestrategies compatible with the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Equinor revealed the new steps on Wednesday after talks witha group of more than 320 investors, led by UBS Asset Management,HSBC Global Asset Management and Storebrand Asset Management,which together manage more than $33 trillion in assets.
Among the changes Equinor will review its existingclimate-related targets to 2030 and set out new targets forafter 2030, linking them with remuneration of executives andemployees.
From 2020, it will also report on the overall, estimatedcarbon intensity of its products and services.
And from this year Equinor said it would look to ensure allmaterial capital investments align with efforts to keep anyincrease in global temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius.
"Equinor and investors have together defined an ambitiouspathway which will see the company play an even more active rolein the transition to a lower carbon economy," Valeria Piani,Strategic Engagement Lead for UBS Asset Management, said.
However, the moves, which follow similar engagements by theClimate Action 100+ investor group with leading oil majors BPand Royal Dutch Shell, did not go far enough forsome.
Equinor said in separate statement its board has recommendedto vote at its annual meeting on May 15 against a shareholderresolution looking to compel it to set reduction targets for theuse of its products, so-called Scope 3 emissions.
"Without a Scope 3 target you can never commit to the Parisclimate agreement," Mark van Baal, founder of Dutch activistgroup Follow This, which filed the resolution, told Reuters,referring to the deal to limit global temperature increases.
The group has withdrawn a similar resolution calling onRoyal Dutch Shell to change its climate policy afterthe company reached a broad agreement with investors.
In March, Shell announced plans to reduce carbon emissionsfrom its oil and gas operations and product sales by 2 percentto 3 percent during the 2016-2021 period, the first oil companyto do so.
"We hope that investors will give the same signals toEquinor which they have given to Shell," van Baal said.(Reporting by Simon Jessop in London and Nerijus Adomatis inOslo; Editing by Alexander Smith)
