Santos’ CEO bonus at odds with Paris Agreement

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) is calling on Santos to revise its corporate strategy in line with the Paris Agreement, in the lead up to the 2022 vote on its climate plan.

ACCR recently withdrew a shareholder resolution to Santos, after the company committed to giving shareholders a vote on its climate transition plan in 2022.

The Climate Action 100+ Net-Zero Company Benchmark assessment of Santos is available here.

Commenting ahead of Santos’ AGM on Thursday, Dan Gocher, Director of Climate & Environment at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) said:

“Santos’ recent final investment decision on Barossa—with a CO2 content of 18-19% and no concrete plan to manage these and other processing emissions at Darwin LNG— conflicts with any credible pathway for Santos to reach net zero by 2040.

“The recently announced $6 million growth bonus for CEO Kevin Gallagher is equally at odds with any genuine commitment to transition Santos to net zero by incentivising development of the Narrabri Gas Project and completion of Barossa at all costs.

“The Climate Action 100+ Net-Zero Benchmark unsurprisingly determined that Santos has not aligned its capital expenditure with the Paris Agreement and that its short, medium and long term targets are insufficient as they exclude Scope 3 emissions.

“The Moomba CCS project is the supposed cure-all within Santos’ climate change strategy. Santos must disclose further detail on the completeness of CO2 capture and the risk of leakage. Doubts remain over Santos’ claims that the capture of third party CO2 is a genuine emissions reduction for the company.”