MEDIA RELEASE
Tiwi and Gomeroi Traditional Owners have joined with Market Forces to demand that Santos end its gas growth plans, which raise major human rights concerns and threaten the safety of all Australians due to massive climate emissions.
On the eve of the Santos Annual General Meeting, Market Forces is urging investors to vote against the re-election of the company’s Chair, Keith Spence over Santos’ inadequate response to investors’ climate concerns and its misguided oil and gas growth plans.
Market Forces is also calling on investors to vote against the Santos Remuneration Report as the company’s remuneration structure incentivises key management personnel to increase oil and gas production and progress fossil fuel growth projects, flying in the face of the company’s own claims to support the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.
Pirrawayingi Puruntatameri, Tiwi Islands Senior Munupi Traditional Owner said:
“We would like people to understand how the Barossa gas project will desecrate our cultural and spiritual connection to the sea, marine animals and the environment.”
Dororthy Tighe, Sovereign of Gomeroi Soil (Traditional Owner) said:
“We have strong links to our Country and its surrounding natural resources like gas. Santos is falling to manage Indigenous risk: repatriation risk, community risk, legal risk and Country risk.
“Santos’s gas extraction expansion plans gravely threaten our land, waterways, habitat, animals and sky country, and we want these projects stopped so that our Country is protected from these risks.”
Sidney Chatfield – Gomeroi Traditional Owner said:
“The creation of the Pilliga Forest is indelibly marked upon the Gamilaroi Nation’s psyche and being. It is the lungs of the Gomeroi lands and sky.
“Any interruptions through any plan of action by Santos, is an affront to the Gomeroi Nation and Australia as a whole.”
Traditional Owners’ demands add fuel to the fire of growing investor concerns that Santos is rejecting demands to disclose a genuine transition plan and climate risk management strategy.
Rachel Deans, Senior Gas Campaigner, Market Forces said:
“Santos is pursuing a misguided oil and gas strategy that has already cost shareholders, including super fund members, through significant underperformance.
“Big investors, including our super funds, need to be on the right side of history and use their votes to drive real climate action at Santos.”
Raymond Weatherall, Gomeroi Elder and Traditional Owner said:
“We as Gomeroi voted 162-2 against Santos at our Nation Meeting. That is a very clear message. Australia hasn’t got a gas shortage, we know this from experts in the field.
“The government and Santos have pushed the Narrabri Gas Project for years and the Gomeroi have opposed it for the same amount of time if not longer.”
For media inquiries and interviews contact:
Antony Balmain, +61-423-253-477 [email protected]
Note to Editors
Market Forces -Santos Member Statement– Investors urged to vote against Remuneration Report
Market Forces – Santos Investor Briefing – ‘Misguided strategy in the face of transition risks’
Santos’ overall emissions are expected to rise 22 per cent by 2028 from 2023 levels due to planned production growth – Market Forces 2024 Investor Briefing.
In April 2023, 18 per cent of shareholders voted for the company to disclose plans to manage down oil and gas production in line with a scenario to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
In May 2022, 37 per cent of shareholders voted against Santos’ Climate Action Plan. 25 per cent of shareholders voted against the Remuneration Report.
In April 2020, 43 per cent of shareholders voted for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emission targets, as well as exploration and expenditure plans aligned with the Paris Agreement.