Climate Activists Put The Heat On Shareholder Meetings

Paris, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th May, 2023 ) :Climate activists are using shareholder meetings to turn up the heat on corporations about their carbon footprints, from flooding them with questions to more colourful tactics like singing or throwing cake at executives.

Last week's Volkswagen shareholders meeting was particularly testy, with a cake landing on the podium where supervisory board member Wolfgang Porsche, who was celebrating his 80th birthday, was sitting.

Scientist Rebellion activists held up a sign slamming the emissions from the group's vehicles. Another person took her top off in protest at the company's operations in China's Xinjiang region, where rights groups and the US say genocide is taking place.

"I wanted to go directly to the source of the car lobbies," said one of the activists, Monika Krimmer, a 60-year-old psychotherapist who held up signs and handed out fliers at the Berlin meeting.

In Paris on Tuesday, Scientist Rebellion members inundated BNP Paribas executives with questions about the European banking giant's climate strategy -- to the point of angering shareholders who hurled insults at the scientists.

BNP bosses, however, answered the questions.

"Do not underestimate the targets we have set," said CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafe, while refusing to draw a red line regarding firms that invest in new fossil fuel fields.