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

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

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

The manager, who works for the independent company Clout, ended her working relationship with Shell in an open letter to its executives and 1,400 employees. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had quit due to Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel agency of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary programs” and “not placing environmental security earlier than manufacturing”.

She stated: “Shell’s stated security ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they name 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 individuals. 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 ready to deal with the implications.”

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

“I can not work for a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of climate change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “Because, opposite to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and fuel, but planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the company’s employees to go away. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing venture encourages oil and fuel employees to walk away from the trade.

The marketing consultant, who runs internal safety surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many people working in fossil gasoline corporations just aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they actually believe their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and gasoline extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid experiences they had been frustrated at the pace of Shell’s shift towards greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to reduce emissions will likely be mentioned at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Observe This may push for the corporate’s policies to be extra in keeping with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has told traders to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set more stringent climate targets.

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

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

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little question, we're determined to ship on our international strategy to be a web zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our persons are working exhausting to achieve this. We've set targets for the brief, medium and long term, and have every intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon energy, although the world will nonetheless want oil and gas for many years to return in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family bills after the energy trade reported bumper income fuelled by the rise in market prices, prompting opposition parties to name on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gasoline producer in the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it would result in the trade approving fewer projects.

Harbour Power’s chief govt, Linda Cook, advised the Monetary Times: “A higher tax burden will make it tougher for new oil and fuel initiatives to fulfill funding hurdle rates, that means fewer initiatives will likely be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when trade is being encouraged to extend domestic UK oil and gasoline manufacturing and help an orderly energy transition.”

Harbour has informed the government it plans to invest $6bn in the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had acquired a £4.6m “golden hey” from the agency.