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

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

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

The executive, who works for the impartial 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 stated she had quit because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline firm of “operating past the design limits of our planetary techniques” and “not placing environmental safety earlier than production”.

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

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

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to deal with the consequences.”

Shell was a “main consumer” of Dennett’s enterprise, which specialises in evaluating safety procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and fuel production. She began working with Shell in 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 the alarms and dismisses the risks of climate change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they are not winding down on oil and gasoline, however planning to discover and extract much more.”

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her career in research and consultancy – was impressed to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rebel local weather protesters urging the corporate’s workers to go away. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and fuel employees to stroll away from the trade.

The guide, who runs inside safety surveys and relies in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many people working in fossil gasoline firms simply 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 extra oil and gas extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clean power sector left amid stories they were frustrated 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 cut back emissions might be mentioned at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Comply with It will push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be more in line 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 said it intends to abstain on a vote on the firm’s local weather transition proposals.

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, might expertise an investor insurrection against his £13.5m pay packet at the AGM after the investment adviser Pirc urged a vote against it.

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A Shell spokesperson stated: “Be in little question, we're determined to ship on our world strategy to be a web zero firm by 2050 and hundreds of our individuals are working exhausting to achieve this. We have now set targets for the short, medium and long term, and have each intention of hitting them.

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

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household payments after the power trade reported bumper profits fuelled by the increase in market prices, prompting opposition parties to name on the federal government to usher in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the most important oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out in opposition to a one-off levy, arguing it would lead to the trade approving fewer projects.

Harbour Vitality’s chief executive, Linda Cook, informed the Financial Occasions: “The next tax burden will make it more challenging for brand spanking new oil and fuel initiatives to satisfy investment hurdle charges, which means fewer initiatives will probably be sanctioned.

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

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