French electricity giant TotalEnergies has defended itself after police teargassed climate activists outside its annual assembly in Paris on Friday. The government has urged the firm to speed up the switch to renewable energy.
"The climate is at the heart of our concerns," TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told a few hundred attendees at the Salle Pleyel concert hall in the capital.
He said his company had done more than others to invest in renewables, adding that it also needed to repond to growing global demand for oil.
French police earlier used tear gas to disperse protesters sitting in front of the venue, but ignored three warnings to move.
Pouyanne said he regretted having to "take exceptional measures" both in calling in the police and in controlling access to the event.
'Knock down Total'
A couple of hundred protesters, however, remained on the street blocked off by police outside the concert hall as shareholders went in.
Four people were detained, police said.
"All we want is to knock down Total," protesters chanted.
"One, two and three degrees, we have Total to thank" was another refrain, in reference to rising global temperatures.
Marie Cohuet, spokeswoman for climate campaigners Alternatiba, said TotalEnergies embodied "the worst" of what had been done to exploit people and the planet.
One shareholder, who gave his name as Jean-Paul, defended himself as he made his way in.
"We are all concerned by climate issues, but there are also economic aspects, employment," he said.
'Go faster'
Climate campaigners are growing impatient with oil majors and other companies over their impact on the planet.
Energy giants posted record profits last year as Russia's war in Ukraine sent oil and gas prices soaring.
TotalEnergies's net profit was a record €18 billion for last year.
The group plans to allocate a third of its investments towards low-carbon energy sources and reach 100 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity by 2030.
But France's Energy Transition Minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, urged the company to speed things up.
"Total invests in renewable energies, but the challenge is to go ... faster," she told Franceinforadio on Friday morning.
Shareholders vote
TotalEnergies has around 1.5 million individual shareholders who are called on to cast votes, in person or online, on two climate-related issues during the assembly.
Investors will vote first on the group's proposed climate strategy, and then on a motion for TotalEnergies to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2015 Paris accord's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
The vote on the motion – put forward by 17 investors who together hold almost 1.5 percent of shares – is purely consultative.
TotalEnergies operations include liquefied natural gas and oil projects in the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Papua New Guinea and Uganda, where it has come under fire for its Eacop oil pipeline project.
(with wires)
