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

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

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

The executive, 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 stop due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

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

She said: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘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 people. And no matter they are saying, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

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

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

“I can no longer work for an organization that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions around internet zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, but planning to explore and extract rather more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was inspired 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 gas workers to walk away from the business.

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

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

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean vitality sector left amid reviews they were annoyed 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 reduce emissions will be discussed on the meeting where the Dutch activist group Follow This will push for the company’s policies to be extra in keeping with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has advised traders to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

The Shell chief executive, Ben van Beurden, might experience an investor revolt in opposition to 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 said: “Be in little question, we're determined to deliver on our international strategy to be a web zero firm by 2050 and hundreds of our people are working arduous to realize this. We've set targets for the short, medium and long run, and have every intention of hitting them.

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

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

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

Harbour Vitality’s chief govt, Linda Cook, instructed the Financial Instances: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for new oil and fuel projects to meet funding hurdle rates, which means fewer initiatives can be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when business is being inspired to increase domestic UK oil and gas production and help an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has instructed the government it plans to take a position $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 whats up” from the agency.