Shell consultant quits, accusing firm of ‘excessive harms’ to setting | Shell

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

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

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

Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary programs” and “not putting environmental safety before production”.

She mentioned: “Shell’s stated safety ambition is to ‘do no harm’ – ‘Purpose Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they are fully failing on it.

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

Dennett told the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m ready to take care of the results.”

Shell was a “major shopper” of Dennett’s enterprise, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gas manufacturing. She started working with Shell in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the business.

“I can not work for a corporation that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the risks of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she stated. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions around web zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, but planning to discover and extract much more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the corporate’s staff to leave. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and gasoline workers to stroll away from the industry.

The marketing consultant, who runs inner safety surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to walk away and “many individuals working in fossil gasoline firms simply aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they actually consider their vision for extra oil and fuel extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid studies they have been pissed off on 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 shall be discussed on the meeting where the Dutch activist group Observe This can push for the company’s policies to be extra per the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has told buyers to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

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

Sign up to the each day Business Right now electronic mail or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

A Shell spokesperson mentioned: “Be in little doubt, we're determined to deliver on our international technique to be a web zero firm by 2050 and thousands of our people are working hard to realize this. We've got set targets for the quick, medium and long term, and have every intention of hitting them.

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

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

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

Harbour Power’s chief govt, Linda Cook, advised the Financial Instances: “The next tax burden will make it tougher for new oil and gas tasks to fulfill funding hurdle charges, meaning fewer tasks will likely be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when industry is being encouraged to extend home UK oil and gasoline production and help an orderly power transition.”

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