Shell guide quits, accusing firm of ‘excessive harms’ to environment | Shell

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

Caroline Dennett claimed Shell had a “disregard for local weather change dangers” and urged others in the oil and gasoline industry to “stroll away while there’s still time”.

The manager, who works for the independent company 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 mentioned she had give up because of Shell’s “double-talk on local weather”.

Dennett accused the oil and gas firm of “working beyond the design limits of our planetary systems” and “not putting environmental security before manufacturing”.

She mentioned: “Shell’s said safety ambition is to ‘do no hurt’ – ‘Goal Zero’, they call it – and it sounds honourable but they're completely failing on it.

“They know that continued oil and gasoline extraction causes excessive harms, to our local weather, to the environment and to individuals. And whatever they are saying, Shell is solely not winding down on fossil fuels.”

Dennett told the Guardian she “could not marry these conflicts with my conscience”, including: “I couldn't carry that any longer, and I’m ready to take care of the implications.”

Shell was a “main consumer” of Dennett’s business, which specialises in evaluating security procedures in high-risk industries together with oil and gasoline manufacturing. She started working with Shell in the aftermath of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which rocked the industry.

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

Dennett – a criminal justice graduate who has spent her career in analysis and consultancy – was inspired to cease working with Shell after watching news footage of Extinction Rise up climate protesters urging the corporate’s staff to depart. The motion’s TruthTeller whistleblowing mission encourages oil and gas staff to walk away from the business.

The guide, who runs inside safety surveys and is predicated in Weymouth, Dorset, acknowledged she was “privileged” to be able to walk away and “many people working in fossil gas firms just aren’t so fortunate”.

She urged Shell’s executives to “look within the mirror and ask themselves if they really imagine their imaginative and prescient for more oil and gas extraction secures a protected future for humanity”.

In late 2020, several Shell executives in its clean vitality sector left amid reports they had been frustrated on 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 scale back emissions will probably be discussed at the assembly where the Dutch activist group Follow This will push for the corporate’s insurance policies to be extra consistent with the Paris local weather accord. Shell’s board has advised investors to reject the group’s decision that asks it to set extra stringent climate objectives.

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

The Shell chief govt, Ben van Beurden, could expertise an investor rebel 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 mentioned: “Be in little question, we are decided to ship on our world technique to be a web zero firm by 2050 and 1000's of our persons are working onerous to realize 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 want oil and gas for many years to return in sectors that may’t be easily decarbonised.”

Shell also faces the prospect of a potential windfall tax to fund cuts to household bills after the vitality industry reported bumper income fuelled by the rise in market costs, prompting opposition events to name on the government to bring in a one-off levy.

On Monday, the biggest oil and gas producer in the North Sea spoke out against a one-off levy, arguing it would result in the industry approving fewer tasks.

Harbour Energy’s chief govt, Linda Cook, told the Monetary Instances: “The next tax burden will make it tougher for new oil and gas projects to satisfy investment hurdle charges, meaning fewer tasks will be sanctioned.

“This is at a time when trade is being encouraged to increase domestic UK oil and gas production and assist an orderly power transition.”

Harbour has advised the government it plans to speculate $6bn within the North Sea over three years as trade makes its case towards the tax. The Guardian revealed this month that Cook had acquired a £4.6m “golden howdy” from the firm.