By Christine Chen
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Climate change protesters blew whistles and shouted on Thursday as they disrupted Australian Woodside Energy’s annual general meeting, heckling Chief Executive Meg O’Neill and forcing several suspensions.
Investors also figured in the backlash to Woodside’s gas projects and sustainability measures, similar to last year, with Australian pension funds HESTA and Aware lodging protest votes against its director charged with climate risk oversight.
“I’d ask you to please be respectful of the other actual shareholders in the room who have a keen interest in understanding what we’re doing to generate value for them,” O’Neill told protesters who interrupted her opening address.
“You should be ashamed!” some of them had yelled.
The whistling and shouting began 20 minutes into the meeting in the western Australian city of Perth, as O’Neill discussed Woodside’s gas portfolio, its contribution to society and role in meeting energy security and decarbonisation goals.
The behaviour was “unnecessary”, Chairman Richard Goyder said.
Event organisers suspended proceedings and tried to drown out the noise by playing promotional videos about the company’s energy projects and sponsorship of local football club the Fremantle Dockers.
“We have plenty more of these videos we can play,” O’Neill added.
Last year’s annual meeting drew similar protests and shareholders voted down Woodwide’s emissions plan.
Last week, the company greenlit a $17.5-billion liquefied natural gas project at Louisiana in the United States, which would take its total LNG output to 24 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) in the next decade, or more than 5% of global supply.
Ahead of the meeting, influential proxy adviser Glass Lewis recommended that shareholders block the re-election of independent director Ann Pickard, who chairs the oversight committee on climate risk.
The funds HESTA and Aware, as well as Norway’s Storebrand, said they would oppose Pickard’s re-election, while U.S. pension funds CalPERS and CALSTRS also said they would vote against director Ben Wyatt.
“The steps taken by Woodside so far fall short of what is needed to position it for the global transition to a low-carbon future and the company needs to do more,” HESTA said in a statement.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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