Shell advisor quits, accusing agency of ‘excessive harms’ to surroundings | Shell

A senior safety consultant has give up working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of causing “extreme harms” to the surroundings.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change dangers” and urged others within the oil and gas business to “walk away while there’s still time”.

The executive, who works for the independent company Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 workers. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had stop because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary programs” and “not placing environmental safety earlier than manufacturing”.

She said: “Shell’s stated safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they name it – and it sounds honourable but they're utterly failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes extreme harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to folks. And no matter they are saying, Shell is just not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett advised the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to cope with the consequences.”

Shell was a “main shopper” of Dennett’s enterprise, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries including oil and gasoline production. She started working with Shell in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the business.

“I can now not work for a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she stated. “As a result of, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round web zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gas, but planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Rebel local weather protesters urging the corporate’s workers to leave. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing challenge encourages oil and gasoline employees to walk away from the business.

The guide, who runs inner safety surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many people working in fossil gas firms simply aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves if they actually consider their imaginative and prescient for more oil and gasoline extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear vitality sector left amid experiences they had been annoyed on the tempo of Shell’s shift in direction of greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to scale back emissions shall be mentioned on the meeting the place the Dutch activist group Follow It will push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be extra in keeping with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has told traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent climate goals.

The Shell investor Royal London has stated it intends to abstain on a vote on the agency’s climate transition proposals.

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, could expertise an investor revolt in opposition to his £13.5m pay packet on the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote in opposition to it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in little doubt, we are determined to ship on our global strategy to be a internet zero company by 2050 and hundreds of our people are working onerous to attain this. We've set targets for the short, medium and long run, and have every intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon power, though the world will still need oil and gasoline for decades to return in sectors that may’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the energy business reported bumper income fuelled by the rise in market costs, prompting opposition events to call on the federal government to usher in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gas producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it might result in the trade approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Vitality’s chief executive, Linda Prepare dinner, told the Monetary Instances: “The next tax burden will make it tougher for brand spanking new oil and fuel projects to satisfy investment hurdle charges, which means fewer projects might be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when trade is being encouraged to increase home UK oil and gasoline manufacturing and help an orderly power transition.”

Harbour has told the government it plans to speculate $6bn in the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case in opposition to the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had received a £4.6m “golden howdy” from the firm.