Woodside Energy’s shareholders appear to have voted tactically at the company’s annual general meeting in Perth on Wednesday. Shareholders delivered a non-binding 58 per cent vote against the gas giant’s climate action plan, which opponents say won’t meet global Paris Agreement targets for reducing carbon emissions. But they voted by a more-than-solid 84 per cent to re-elect chairman Richard Goyder who, along with chief executive Meg O’Neill, shows few signs of radically changing Woodside’s gas development plans.

The split shareholder vote followed an extraordinary orchestrated campaign against Mr Goyder and Woodside’s climate plan by both big proxy advisors like CGI Glass Lewis, and green activists at the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility. Major shareholder Allan Gray supported both the plan and the chairman, deciding that their defeat wouldn’t help the climate cause. Mr Goyder now has to crack the problem of shifting from a highly carbon-intensive resources company to a green one without destroying shareholder value and earnings in the process.