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

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

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change dangers” and urged others in the oil and gas industry to “stroll away while there’s nonetheless 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 workers. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had give up due to Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and fuel firm of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary techniques” and “not placing environmental safety earlier than manufacturing”.

She mentioned: “Shell’s acknowledged security ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they name it – and it sounds honourable but they're fully failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes excessive harms, to our climate, to the environment and to folks. And whatever they say, Shell is just not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett advised the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m able to cope 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 within the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the business.

“I can now not work for an organization that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she mentioned. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions round internet zero, they don't seem to be winding down on oil and fuel, but planning to explore and extract much more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rebellion climate protesters urging the company’s workers to go away. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing challenge encourages oil and gasoline workers to stroll away from the trade.

The guide, who runs internal safety surveys and is based in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many individuals working in fossil gasoline corporations just aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they really imagine their vision for more oil and fuel extraction secures a safe future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid studies they had been 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 scale back emissions might be discussed on the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Observe This will push for the company’s insurance policies to be extra in line with the Paris local weather 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 stated it intends to abstain on a vote on the firm’s climate transition proposals.

The Shell chief govt, 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 in opposition to it.

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little question, we are determined to deliver on our international strategy to be a internet zero company by 2050 and thousands of our people are working arduous to attain this. We now have set targets for the brief, medium and long run, and have every intention of hitting them.

“We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon vitality, though the world will nonetheless need oil and gasoline for decades to come in sectors that can’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the vitality 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 largest oil and gasoline producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it could result in the business approving fewer projects.

Harbour Vitality’s chief govt, Linda Prepare dinner, told the Financial Times: “The next tax burden will make it more difficult for brand spanking new oil and fuel initiatives to meet investment hurdle rates, that means fewer tasks can be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when industry is being inspired to increase home UK oil and fuel production and assist an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has told the federal government it plans to invest $6bn in the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case in opposition to the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Prepare dinner had obtained a £4.6m “golden hiya” from the firm.