MELBOURNE, Thursday November 16, 2017

Out front of BHP’s annual general meeting in Melbourne today, facing a shareholder resolution for an audit of its membership of industry associations, community groups called on the company to quit the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) and stand up for responsible climate change action.

Members of environmental and social justice groups gathered outside the BHP AGM with banners and placards, offering leaflets to shareholders, calling for the company to end its funding of the biggest blocker of climate change action in Australia: the MCA.

“In recent weeks BHP has worked to distance itself from the Minerals Council’s efforts to disrupt and delay climate change action, and to try to remove the rights of environmental groups to advocate for positive change,” 350.org Australia Deputy CEO Glen Klatovsky told the crowd. “But while BHP remains the largest funding member of the MCA, it not only bankrolls these outrageous attacks, it offers them legitimacy.”  

“Today we are gathered to call on BHP to end its membership of the climate wrecking Minerals Council, and the toxic politics that the lobby group carries out.”

“The coal industry’s multi-million-dollar lobbying efforts – underwritten by the membership fees paid by BHP, Rio Tinto and other mining companies – have been pivotal in stopping any real government action on climate change,” Klatovsky said.

“Australians are sick and tired of feeling that there is no prospect of climate change action because our government is held hostage to the coal lobby,” said Klatovsky. “BHP, who have largely left the coal industry, should quit the Minerals Council, and stop bankrolling its climate wrecking efforts.”

Images of the event will be available here