This seems like all it would take for an era of clean energy building is a simple shift in incentives. Fossil fuels are highly profitable yet clean energy isn't? Great! The solution is possible then! Just tax the absolute hell out of the profit margins of fossil fuel companies and use that to subsidize clean energy conversion and electric bike and vehicle buying. Surge the taxes on capital gains on dirty energy companies, and perhaps even reduce capital gains on clean energy to drive investing. Seems there's plenty of money in our banana stand, its just a matter of shifting it to where it can work to achieve our climate goals.
What actually happened: Shell shareholders rejected resolution 26, which according to the linked CNBC article "calls on the company to align its climate targets with the landmark Paris Agreement and commit to absolute carbon emissions cuts by 2030"
The wikipedia article on the paris agreement says "emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030". Without arguing over whether rejecting that means "let the world burn", doesn't that target seem unrealistic? Is anyone anywhere close to hitting that target? The only thing I can think of is companies with fat margins (eg. google) that don't emit much relative to their profit, and can pay for carbon offsets to be "net zero". It's not realistic for anyone else or the economy as a whole. It's easy to lambast shell shareholders for not adopting the resolution and "letting the world burn", but if everyone else is doing the same, can you really blame them for not wanting to torpedo their company?
Companies are not that important.
The ethical decision making here is completely revolving around ones speculative beliefs.
If you truly believe this will have a sufficiently meaningful impact, then you should be willing to torpedo this company, no matter who you are.
What qualifies as sufficiently meaningful is up to us.
Not clear if that means 80% of votes or 80% of all shares (of which I'd expect a much smaller turnout than 80%).
Regardless, we don't know what percent of shareholders that is. There could be 10 people who own 80% of shares, all of whom, unsurprisingly voted to maximize shareholder value, consequences be damned. That could be <1% of shareholders.