Shell advisor quits, accusing firm of ‘extreme harms’ to setting | Shell

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

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

The chief, who works for the impartial company 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 give up due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “working past the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not placing environmental security earlier than manufacturing”.

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

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to our environment and to individuals. And no matter they say, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

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

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

“I can no longer work for a corporation that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “As a result of, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to explore and extract way more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching information footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and fuel workers to walk away from the trade.

The guide, who runs inner safety surveys and is based in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to walk away and “many people working in fossil gasoline firms just aren’t so fortunate”.

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean vitality sector left amid studies they had been annoyed 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 cut back emissions will probably be discussed at the assembly where the Dutch activist group Observe This will push for the corporate’s policies to be more in keeping with the Paris climate accord. Shell’s board has told traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set extra stringent local weather targets.

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

The Shell chief government, Ben van Beurden, may expertise an investor rebellion towards his £13.5m pay packet on the AGM after the funding adviser Pirc urged a vote towards it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in no doubt, we are decided to ship on our international technique to be a internet zero firm by 2050 and 1000's of our people are working onerous to attain this. We've set targets for the quick, medium and long term, and have each 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 many years to come back in sectors that can’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the power industry reported bumper income fuelled by the increase in market costs, prompting opposition events to call on the government to herald 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 would lead to the industry approving fewer projects.

Harbour Vitality’s chief government, Linda Prepare dinner, instructed the Financial Instances: “A higher tax burden will make it more challenging for brand new oil and gasoline tasks to meet funding hurdle charges, that means fewer projects will likely be sanctioned.

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

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