Shell consultant quits, accusing agency of ‘extreme harms’ to surroundings | Shell

A senior safety advisor has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil gas producer in a bombshell public video of inflicting “excessive harms” to the environment.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change dangers” and urged others in the oil and fuel industry to “stroll away while there’s still time”.

The executive, who works for the unbiased agency 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 due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “working past the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not placing environmental security before production”.

She said: “Shell’s said security ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable however they're completely failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and fuel extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to our environment and to folks. And whatever they say, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m able to deal with the results.”

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

“I can not work for an organization that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “Because, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around net zero, they aren't winding down on oil and gas, but planning to explore and extract way more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rise up local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing project encourages oil and gas employees to stroll away from the industry.

The consultant, who runs inside safety surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to stroll away and “many individuals working in fossil gas corporations simply aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really consider their vision for more oil and gas extraction secures a secure future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean energy sector left amid reviews they had been pissed off at the tempo of Shell’s shift towards greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to cut back emissions might be mentioned at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Observe This may push for the company’s insurance policies to be extra according to the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has instructed buyers to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set more stringent climate goals.

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

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, might experience an investor rise up against his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in no doubt, we're decided to deliver on our international technique to be a internet zero firm by 2050 and hundreds of our people are working laborious to realize this. We've set targets for the short, medium and long run, and have each intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon power, although the world will nonetheless want oil and gasoline for decades to come in sectors that may’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the power trade reported bumper income fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition events to name on the government to herald a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gasoline producer in the North Sea spoke out in opposition to a one-off levy, arguing it will lead to the business approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Energy’s chief govt, Linda Prepare dinner, told the Financial Occasions: “A higher tax burden will make it tougher for brand spanking new oil and fuel initiatives to meet funding hurdle rates, meaning fewer initiatives will be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when business is being encouraged to extend home UK oil and fuel production and help an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has told the government it plans to invest $6bn within the North Sea over three years as industry makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had obtained a £4.6m “golden whats up” from the firm.