TotalEnergies is called upon to “put the package” on renewable energies. The pollution of the large group is on the front of the stage this Friday, while environmental activists try to prevent the holding of a general meeting of its shareholders. “Total invests in renewable energies, but the challenge is to go faster, stronger and above all faster,” insisted the Minister for Energy Transition.
Oil and gas companies “must reinvent themselves, they must get out of fossil fuels,” said Agnès Pannier-Runacher, invited by Franceinfo radio. Because “they will have no future – and I said this to Patrick Pouyanné for Total – if they are not able to trace these trajectories of exit from fossil fuels and decarbonization”, she added, referring to IPCC reports.
The minister castigates “a disorder in public order”
While scuffles took place between the police and demonstrators for the climate, near the Paris room where the general assembly of the French group is to be held, the minister was critical of the “unannounced” demonstrations, which “create from disorder to public order”. However, she distinguished, on the merits, “the question raised by these actions and which is a very good question”.
“From the moment the demonstration is not announced, we are in a disorganized expression, even though activists have posed the debate within the general assembly”, recalled Agnès Pannier-Runacher, referring to the advisory resolution from the activist shareholder organization Follow This, which mainly tackles indirect CO2 emissions.
“Avoid being a lecturer”
“You have a vote that will take place on Total’s climate policy and it is in this context that the debate can take place and that we can effectively put pressure on Total”, added the minister. Asked about stopping TotalEnergies’ investments in oil, she felt that “these are trajectories that are built over time”, recalling that France had stopped the exploitation of hydrocarbons on its soil.
On the subject of the controversial Eacop heated pipeline project developed by TotalEnergies in Uganda, the minister called for “avoiding giving lessons”, particularly in relation to the country, stressing that the African countries she meets, particularly in the framework of conferences for the climate, express the “need for means of development” and refer the European countries to their balance sheet in terms of emissions, “worse” than theirs.