Australian shareholders at BHP (ASX, NYSE: BHP) have voted against
a plan that would have seen the global miner leave lobby groups that promote
policies at odds with the goals of the Paris climate accord.
Only 27% of votes cast at the company’s annual meeting (AGM), which took place in Sydney on Thursday, were in favour of the resolution to cut ties with industry organizations involved in pro-coal lobbying. And just half of them backed another motion to amend the group’s constitution, which would have allowed investors to propose changes to be considered at future AGMs.
The results echo the stance taken by BHP investors in London last month, where 77.8% of the votes supported the company’s membership to groups in favour of fossil fuels.
Only 27% of votes cast at the company’s annual meeting in Sydney were in favour of cutting ties with industry organizations in favour of fossil fuels.
The Australian gathering represents about 58% of all BHP
shareholders, with the remaining 42% in England.
Chairman Ken MacKenzie said BHP believed it’s easier to influence from within, adding that industry groups provide many essential avenues, including a saying in setting global standards and other issues not included in the failed resolution.
“Climate change is a complex problem,” he said at the Sydney meeting. “If we are to successfully develop solutions we need to collaborate (…) Industry associations provide a vital forum for that collaboration.”
“If we see that there is misalignment between an industry association and our position, then we will act,” he added, noting that the mining giant has already quit one of them — the World Coal Association — as part of an ongoing review of all its memberships to industry groups.
In July, the company said it was considering options
to divest its thermal coal business, which includes assets in
Australia and Colombia.
The Paris Climate Accord is an agreement within the United
Nations Framework Convention on climate change. It set out a global action plan
to put the world on track to limiting global warming to well below 2°C
Coal currently makes up for about 20% of BHP’s revenue, but
the miner is targeting net zero emissions from its operations in the second
half of this century.
Rival Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO), the world’s second largest miner, fully exited the coal sector in March 2018, with the sale of its Kestrel coal mine in Australia to private equity manager EMR Capital and Indonesia’s Adaro Energy for $2.25 billion.
South32 (ASX, LON, JSE:S32), which spun out of BHP in 2015, kissed coal goodbye this week with the sale of its South African operations to Seriti Resources and two trusts, for 100 million rand ($6.78 million) upfront.