* Follow This resolution wins 20.6% support
* BP says will continue to engage with shareholders
(Adds details, background)
By Ron Bousso
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - A resolution from a climate
activist group demanding BP set tougher emission
reduction targets was supported by 20.6% of shareholder votes on
Wednesday, pointing to growing investor pressure.
Although the level of support at the company's annual
general meeting (AGM) meant the resolution filed by Dutch group
Follow This was rejected, it was significantly higher than the
last climate resolution it filed at BP's 2019 AGM, when it won
8.4% support.
The activist group had called on BP to publish short, medium
and long-term targets to reduce emissions that are consistent
with the U.N.-backed 2015 Paris agreement to limit global
warming to below 2 degrees celsius from pre-industrial levels.
The board had opposed the resolution.
Mark van Baal, the head of Follow This, told Reuters that "a
fifth of shareholders want BP to go back to the drawing board
and rethink their strategy."
BP, led by CEO Bernard Looney since February 2020, last year
announced plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from oil and
gas it produces to zero and reduce by half the carbon instensity
of all products it sells by 2050.
In one of the sector's most ambitious strategies, BP also
plans to slash its oil output by 40% and boost its renewable
power business by 20-fold by 2030.
BP said in a statement following the vote that it "will
continue to engage with shareholders on our strategy, targets
and aims so as to ensure their views are fully understood."
The company will publish an update on its engagement with
shareholders around climate within 6 months, it said.
BP Chairman Helge Lund said at the start of the AGM that "in
practice the resolution would constrain BP's ability to adjust
its strategy in future as the energy transition unfolds."
(Reporting by Ron Bousso. Editing by Jane Merriman and Elaine
Hardcastle)
BP (BP.)
