Royal Dutch Shell AGM: Our climate-related votes

We recognise Shell’s leadership in the energy sector and welcome the commitment to an annual say-on-climate vote at the AGM. However, the main driver of our voting decision is the plan itself: are we confident that Shell will transition fast enough to achieve net zero emissions by 2050? While we acknowledge the direction of Shell’s transition is towards net zero emissions by 2050 for the complete value chain, the trajectory (interim targets), as well as the instruments used to achieve the required reductions, do not provide sufficient certainty about alignment of the strategy with the ultimate goal of the Paris agreement to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C. Our main concern about the plan is the fact that a large majority of decarbonisation is planned to take place after 2030, but the plan provides very limited indicators that the required acceleration of decarbonisation will take place. Shell confirms that after 2030 there is significant uncertainty about how society will transition to net-zero emissions.