---
title: Investor revolt rocks AGL
description: AGL's AGM was a bloodbath with a flood of questions on the company’s pollution, coal closure and AGL’s billion-dollar losses and terminal share price.
---
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The Canopy is a weekday morning email newsletter provided by the team at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
# Investor revolt rocks AGL
Thursday, 23 September 2021
Yesterday’s annual general meeting of the nation’s biggest climate polluter, AGL, was a veritable bloodbath with Chairman Peter Botten hammered with a tsunami of questions on the company’s shocking environmental record, UN and IEA calls for a 2030 coal closure deadline and AGL’s billion-dollar loses and terminal share price.
Questions for which Botten seemed completely unprepared. AGL had no answers to why the company had been so badly mismanaged, other than to say ‘we’re not the only energy company doing it tough’.
In a further blow, a majority of shareholders backed a resolution calling on AGL to disclose interim emissions targets towards the Paris climate goals for both of its planned demerged companies and in another indictment of AGL’s non-leadership, there was significant support for a teenage climate activist’s unlikely bid for a Board seat. Oh, and AGL is also headed to court again for allegedly failing to limit climate pollution.
[Investor revolt rocks AGL as climate demands intensify](https://app.meltwater.com/mwTransition/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fbusiness%2Fcompanies%2Finvestor-revolt-rocks-agl-as-climate-demands-intensify-20210922-p58tos.html&uId=5a778e7a00aa2026a265262c&cId=5a71496272d9dc241933e61d&contextId=614b8b88920c671bf17b4a56&dId=TnUh1KO7UnXL5sv9KtobgErxz2Q&op=open&sentiment=N&isHosted=false&id=3628643&name=Coal%20(Print%20and%20Online)&type=search&transitionToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiJ9.eyJob3N0bmFtZSI6Ind3dy5zbWguY29tLmF1In0.dLrErlrnr5ygrw6r9BmLnD1I0aNYVH93_YJo5EofLTHngNTsac5xMwvusd5MeI2-ZEAd-GcYmYdqdbniemYuyQ&s=mail-digest)
AGL, the nation’s heaviest greenhouse gas emitter, has been rocked by an unprecedented investor revolt over climate change as more than half of its shareholders backed demands for vastly stronger carbon-reduction goals.
[AGL gets climate action lesson from angry investors and inspired teenager](https://reneweconomy.com.au/agl-gets-climate-action-lesson-from-angry-investors-and-inspired-teenager/)
AGL shareholders have delivered a blunt message to the company’s board about the need to dramatically reduce its emissions footprint, with a majority backing a call for AGL to adopt targets in line with the Paris Agreement and to prepare plans for how it will manage the transition from coal to zero emissions.
[Environmental showstopper: AGL has its Greta Thunberg moment](https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/environmental-showstopper-agl-has-its-greta-thunberg-moment-20210922-p58tx2.html)
Numerous Australian companies have recently faced the environmental backlash from investors. But AGL has been squeezed by the pincer of big emissions and plunging profit - enough to upset any shareholder.
[AGL among coal burners taken to court over climate pollution](https://app.meltwater.com/mwTransition/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fnational%2Fvictoria%2Fcoal-power-generators-epa-taken-to-court-over-climate-pollution-20210921-p58tf6.html&uId=5a778e7a00aa2026a265262c&cId=5a71496272d9dc241933e61d&contextId=614b8b88920c671bf17b4a56&dId=3Kijq6zH5BNotaX4_dPO6FJjCpo&op=open&sentiment=N&isHosted=false&id=7408579&name=Clean%20Air&type=search&transitionToken=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiJ9.eyJob3N0bmFtZSI6Ind3dy5zbWguY29tLmF1In0.dLrErlrnr5ygrw6r9BmLnD1I0aNYVH93_YJo5EofLTHngNTsac5xMwvusd5MeI2-ZEAd-GcYmYdqdbniemYuyQ&s=mail-digest)
Owners of Victoria’s ageing coal-fired power generators and the state’s environmental watchdog are being sued in the Supreme Court for allegedly failing to limit climate pollution.
[Clive Palmer coal project awaiting Barcaldine Regional Council decision](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-22/clive-palmer-waratah-coal-power-station-project-fate-decided/100479734)
Clive Palmer's company Waratah Coal is quietly seeking approval from a local council for a new coal-fired power station in Central Queensland.
[Environmentalist Ben Pennings fears Adani legal bill could bankrupt him](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-23/adani-bravus-ben-pennings-bankrupt-legal-bill-galilee-blockade/100483366)
Environmental campaigner Ben Pennings says he fears he could be bankrupted after Adani claimed a single day in court cost them $800,000.
[Coal](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/coal), [AGL](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/agl), [climate change](https://blog.greenpeace.org.au/the-canopy/tag/climate-change)
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