The head of France's TotalEnergies, one of the few oil executives to attend UN climate talks in Brazil, jousted Friday with activists, defended his presence and sidestepped questions about his sector's role in global warming.

After speaking in a panel at COP30 in Belem, TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne was confronted by a Greenpeace activist over demands that the fossil fuel industry compensate victims of extreme weather events.

"There have been cyclones in the Caribbean for decades," Pouyanne retorted.

When told they were "accelerating," he replied: "I am not a scientist."

"I am not a meteorologist," Pouyanne said when asked by AFP about science showing hurricanes are becoming more intense.

"I simply observe that, unfortunately, there were (cyclones), there are still (c

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