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

A senior security guide has quit working with Shell after 11 years, accusing the fossil fuel producer in a bombshell public video of causing “extreme harms” to the atmosphere.

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for climate change dangers” and urged others within 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 staff. In an accompanying video, posted on LinkedIn, she said she had give up because of Shell’s “double-talk on climate”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “operating past the design limits of our planetary methods” and “not placing environmental security before manufacturing”.

She stated: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Goal 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 climate, to the environment and to individuals. And no matter they say, Shell is just not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett instructed the Guardian she “couldn't marry these conflicts with my conscience”, adding: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m able to take care of 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 gasoline production. She started working with Shell within the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the business.

“I can not work for a company that ignores all of the alarms and dismisses the dangers of local weather change and ecological collapse,” she said. “Because, contrary to Shell’s public expressions round net zero, they are not winding down on oil and gas, however planning to discover and extract rather more.”

Dennett – a felony justice graduate who has spent her profession in research and consultancy – was inspired to stop working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Riot climate protesters urging the corporate’s staff to go away. The movement’s TruthTeller whistleblowing undertaking encourages oil and gasoline employees to walk away from the business.

The guide, who runs internal security surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to have the ability to walk away and “many individuals working in fossil fuel companies simply aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe 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 energy sector left amid stories 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 mentioned on the assembly where the Dutch activist group Follow This may push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be extra in line with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has instructed investors to reject the group’s resolution that asks it to set extra stringent local weather targets.

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

The Shell chief executive, Ben van Beurden, might experience an investor rise up against 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 mentioned: “Be in no doubt, we are determined to ship on our international technique to be a internet zero firm by 2050 and hundreds of our persons are working hard to realize this. We've got 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, though the world will still need oil and gas for decades to come back in sectors that may’t be simply decarbonised.”

Shell additionally faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to family payments after the power trade reported bumper earnings fuelled by the increase in market costs, prompting opposition parties to call on the federal government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the most important oil and fuel producer in the North Sea spoke out towards a one-off levy, arguing it might result in the trade approving fewer projects.

Harbour Power’s chief government, Linda Cook dinner, told the Financial Times: “A higher tax burden will make it more challenging for brand spanking new oil and fuel tasks to satisfy investment hurdle rates, which means fewer initiatives will likely be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when industry is being encouraged to extend home UK oil and fuel production and help an orderly vitality transition.”

Harbour has told the federal 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 dinner had received a £4.6m “golden hello” from the agency.