Shell advisor quits, accusing agency of ‘extreme harms’ to environment | Shell

A senior security guide has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil gasoline producer in a bombshell public video of inflicting “extreme harms” to the atmosphere.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change dangers” and urged others within the oil and gasoline business to “walk away while there’s nonetheless 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 workers. 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 fuel agency of “operating beyond the design limits of our planetary techniques” and “not putting environmental safety before manufacturing”.

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

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes extreme harms, to our local weather, to our surroundings and to individuals. And whatever they say, Shell is simply not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m ready to cope with the consequences.”

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

“I can no longer work for a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the risks of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions around web zero, they aren't winding down on oil and fuel, but planning to explore and extract far more.”

Dennett – a prison justice graduate who has spent her profession in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Revolt local weather protesters urging the company’s staff to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing mission encourages oil and fuel staff to walk away from the business.

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

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves if they really consider their imaginative and prescient for extra oil and fuel extraction secures a secure future for humanity”.

In late 2020, several Shell executives in its clean energy sector left amid studies they had been pissed off at the pace of Shell’s shift in the direction of greener fuels.

Her announcement comes on the eve of Shell’s AGM in London on Tuesday. Its plans to reduce emissions can be mentioned at the meeting where the Dutch activist group Comply with This will push for the corporate’s policies to be extra in keeping with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has informed investors to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent local weather objectives.

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

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, could expertise an investor rise up towards 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 mentioned: “Be in little doubt, we're decided to deliver on our international technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and 1000's of our people are working onerous to attain this. We have set targets for the short, 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 still need oil and gas for decades to come back in sectors that may’t be easily decarbonised.”

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

On Monday, the largest oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it could result in the industry approving fewer initiatives.

Harbour Power’s chief executive, Linda Cook dinner, told the Monetary Occasions: “A higher tax burden will make it tougher for brand new oil and gasoline initiatives to fulfill investment hurdle charges, meaning fewer initiatives shall be sanctioned.

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

Harbour has instructed the government it plans to invest $6bn in the North Sea over three years as industry 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 agency.