Berlin, Germany: The accusation comes a day before Shell’s annual general meeting for shareholders.
Caroline Dennett, a safety issues consultant for Shell for more than a decade, accused the oil and gas company of “double talk”. She claims that Shell wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but also working on tapping new sources of fossil fuel.
Caroline used business networking platform LinkedIn to inform the world. She also wrote about ending her ties with the Shell and urged others associated with the fossil fuel sector to follow suit.
She said her growing personal concerns about climate change made it difficult for her to work for Shell.
“It’s one thing to support a company to, hopefully, transition to alternative energy sources and making sure that they operate safely,” she told The Associated Press. “It’s another thing to actually be supporting new oil and gas projects.”
Shell’s response was quick. The company reiterated its goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
“We have set targets for the short, medium and long term, and have every intention of hitting them,” read the company's statement. “We’re already investing billions of dollars in low-carbon energy, although the world will still need oil and gas for decades to come in sectors that can’t be easily decarbonized.”
But Caroline said the company's frontline staff never discussed climate change.
“It’s probably happening in the PR team and the marketing and branding team, but it’s not happening in the operational divisions as far as I can see,” she said.
In April, António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, accused some government and business leaders of the same “Double Talk” thing.
He said, “Simply put, they are lying. And the results will be catastrophic,” calling for an end to all fossil fuels.
In order to expose the wrongdoers, Guterres appointed an expert panel to scrutinize companies’ net zero claims amid concerns that they could be mere “greenwashing.”
Source: The Associated Press
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