About 200 activists have protested outside the Crown Resort and Casino in Perth as Woodside Energy shareholders debated whether to re-elect its chairman and if they should approve a climate transition plan environmentalists say is insufficient. 

Flanked by police, they peacefully marched about 300 metres into the complex holding placards with anti-Woodside messaging on Wednesday.

“”Shame on Woodside, when you gonna learn, you can’t make money on a planet that burns,” they chanted. “Six months no rain, Woodside are to blame.”

Inside the meeting, shareholders were voting on whether to re-elect chairman Richard Goyder, and were set to hold an advisory vote on Woodside’s Climate Transition Action Plan.

The final results of Mr Goyder’s re-election had not been finalised by mid-afternoon but a slide displayed at the meeting showing preliminary votes suggested he was set to win with more than 80 per cent support. 

The meeting was ongoing at 2.20pm AEST and the climate plan resolution had not yet been taken up.

Activists from Greenpeace Australia Pacific, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA), Market Forces and Environs Kimberley have urged shareholders to reject both Mr Goyder and the climate plan.

“Woodside chair Richard Goyder says that the energy transition needs time and trust,” said CCWA executive director Jess Beckerling.

“We say to Woodside: we’re out of time, and you are not trusted.”

The groups are particularly incensed by Woodside’s Burrup Hub project on WA’s Burrup Peninsula, part of the company’s $16.5 billion plan to develop the Scarborough gas field 375km off the Pilbara coast of WA.

“Woodside’s enormous Burrup Hub gas precinct would be the Southern Hemisphere’s largest gas carbon bomb, with its lifetime climate pollution more than 13 times Australia’s annual emissions from all sources,” said Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Kelly O’Shanassy.

Woodside says the Scarborough project, scheduled for first gas in 2026, will create thousands of jobs, contribute $19 billion in taxes to Australia and help neighbouring Asian countries with their energy transition.

Mr Goyder said in a letter to shareholders last week that Woodside believed that climate change was an urgent global challenge, and that he had personally led over 80 engagements with shareholders and proxy advisors on the issue over the past 12 months. 

“We are being honest about the energy transition,” he wrote, calling Woodside’s climate plan a “well-considered and realistic pathway” that deserved shareholder support at the AGM.

“We are concerned that some stakeholders’ and investors’ requests to drastically change Woodside’s strategy and investment priorities risk eroding value for all shareholders and contributing to a disorderly energy transition,” Mr Goyder wrote. 

A vote on the climate plan is purely advisory. Woodside says it will take shareholder feedback onboard when determining its path on climate change going forward. 

This post was originally published on Michael West.