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

A senior safety advisor has give up working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel 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 in the oil and fuel business to “walk away while there’s still time”.

The executive, who works for the unbiased 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 quit because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gasoline agency of “working past the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental safety earlier than manufacturing”.

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

“They know that continued oil and gas extraction causes excessive 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 told the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I could not carry that any longer, and I’m ready to cope with the consequences.”

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

“I can now not work for a company that ignores all the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she stated. “As a result of, opposite to Shell’s public expressions around internet zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, however planning to discover and extract way more.”

Dennett – a legal justice graduate who has spent her profession in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rise up local weather protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing mission encourages oil and fuel staff to stroll away from the trade.

The consultant, who runs inside safety surveys and is based in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to stroll away and “many people working in fossil fuel companies simply aren’t so lucky”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves in the event that they really believe their vision for extra oil and gasoline extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, a number of Shell executives in its clear vitality sector left amid reviews they have been frustrated 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 at the assembly the place the Dutch activist group Comply with This may push for the company’s insurance policies to be more in step with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has informed traders to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set more stringent local weather 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 rebellion against his £13.5m pay packet on the AGM after the funding adviser Pirc urged a vote against it.

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A Shell spokesperson said: “Be in no doubt, we're determined to ship on our international technique to be a net zero company by 2050 and thousands of our individuals are working laborious to realize this. We have now 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 vitality, although the world will nonetheless want oil and gas for many years to come in sectors that may’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a possible windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the energy industry reported bumper profits 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 biggest oil and gas producer in the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it could result in the trade approving fewer projects.

Harbour Power’s chief government, Linda Cook, informed the Financial Occasions: “A higher tax burden will make it more difficult for new oil and fuel initiatives to meet funding hurdle charges, which means fewer initiatives might be sanctioned.

“That is at a time when trade is being encouraged to increase home UK oil and gas production and help an orderly energy transition.”

Harbour has instructed the government it plans to speculate $6bn in the North Sea over three years as business makes its case against the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook dinner had acquired a £4.6m “golden hi there” from the agency.