Caroline Dennett was 11 years old as an operational safety consultant working with oil giant Shell when she saw a news clip about a climate protest outside its headquarters in the United Kingdom. One of the protesters, from the Extinction Rebellion group, carried a sign reading “Insiders Wanted,” asking officers to contact if they had anything to say.
She did it. On Monday, Dennett said this as publicly as possible – violating his contract with the company in an email sent to the Shell Executive Committee for its hypocrisy over climate change. In her resignation letter, she accused Shell of “failing on a huge planetary scale”, noting that “it is not stopping oil and gas, but planning to explore and extract much more”.
Shell has promised to reach net zero emissions in less than 30 years and advertises its support for climate action in press releases and advertisements. But the company continues to expand new wells, which almost guarantee that the world will exceed 2 degrees Celsius for warming.
Her resignation letter states: “Shell is working beyond the design of our planetary systems. Shell is not taking steps to mitigate known risks. Shell does not put environmental safety before production. “She posted the accompanying video online:
Over the past decade, Denet, who runs a small business that Shell considered its largest customer, has surveyed 20,000 employees in at least 65 projects around the world to identify vulnerabilities in the company’s security procedures. Her latest task for Shell was to study two new projects in the Niger Delta, a particularly polluted region of oil operations in Nigeria.
Shell did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Denet’s resignation.
The role of the oil industry in climate change has led to some notable problems in hiring employees for the oil giants and its contractors, including PR agencies, are gaining increasing attention. An increasing number refuse to work for the industry at all. A 16-year-old Exxon engineer left last year due to the company’s inaction on climate change. And Denet’s email includes asking others to reconsider their role in working for big oil. “I am lucky to be able to make that choice and I admit that many people at Shell may not be in that position. But the fossil fuel industry is over, and if you have the opportunity to go out, please leave and pursue a more sustainable career and help get us all on the path to a truly safer future.
Vox talks to Denet about his decision to leave publicly. A transcript of our conversation is below, edited for length and clarity.
What prompted your decision today to stop working with Shell?
I can’t go on working for, with or supporting a company that just blindly ignores all the alarm bells.
It’s like someone asking you to go to work in the tobacco industry. I have lasted as long as I have because of the firm belief that while working, people must be safe. We must prevent as many leaks as possible. We must prevent as many accidents as possible. But there comes a time when it’s just time for a divorce. I have come to the point where I cannot live with my own conscience for continuing to support a company that is simply not interested in what is happening to the climate and the people it will harm.
But the work I did at Shell was valuable in terms of preventing harm to people and preventing oil and gas leaks. I guess I’m comforted that this is a compromise. In doing so, I help him stay as safe as possible while working, but in the hope that it will pass and we will move to more renewable energy sources and stop for new research. I recently noticed that they are still building new oil and gas developments and are still looking for new reserves. We can’t do this anymore.
All warnings are in place: the International Energy Agency, COP 26 and the United Nations. [UN Secretary-General] Antonio Guterres says it is economic and moral madness to still look for new oil and gas and every new fossil fuel. Governments around the world say no, you can’t have new oil and gas production. I think it’s one thing to see a company safely switch to new energy, but it’s another to say that I still support new yields.
You have researched many oil and gas workers, from on-site operators to senior managers. What is the company’s culture of climate change?
This is a double conversation. On the one hand, you know, Shell says, “We’re very focused on safety and we don’t want anyone to get hurt.” the atmosphere.
This is an industry that is usually very focused on mitigating risks, but they do not mitigate any of the risks of climate change.
The surveys we conduct provide an awful lot of opportunities for people to give open feedback in questionnaires and online surveys. They can write something that they think needs to be improved. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of climate change. Maybe something about, you know, the non-pollution at the local level and the risks around it, around the operational sites. But it’s amazing that no one is talking about it. I would say that just recently someone mentioned the zero target for 2050. But this is a man for 11 years who talks to more than 20,000 people and that’s pretty scary.
It lives in press releases and on the website, but does not live in [company] culture.
What answer would you hope to see from Shell?
I would like them to commit to not looking for more oil and gas reserves to exploit around the world. We need to withdraw from fossil fuels if we want a future suitable for everyone. The oil and gas industry knows science: there is good evidence, they created the science around it. What I would like to see is for Shell to use its capital, its human strength, its skills and its great pioneering abilities, which led us to oil and gas 150 years ago, to move quickly towards a renewable future.
They once had a vision of what a good future might look like, and they thought it was oil and gas. We know that this can no longer give us a secure future.
I would just be really happy for Shell and the board to really look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really believe that their vision for more oil and gas expansion and production really provides a future for humanity.
What role could contractors and consulting firms play in putting pressure on fossil fuel companies to change?
It’s quite difficult to ask individuals to walk away, and I feel a little uncomfortable even suggesting that people may want to do this. Because if you are a front-line worker, somewhere like Nigeria, you have a choice between working in the oil and gas industry or not feeding your family. They can’t afford to leave Shell unless they go to another fossil fuel company. So those who created the problem in the first place must solve the problem.
What position does this leave a company like Shell in when larger companies sever ties?
With the upcoming ones [annual general meeting] next week they are looking to get some validation of their current climate policy and strategy. Probably not very brilliant.
Those who still have influence must be very clear about what the demand for the future is. And I think those who have less influence but still have money should take it out.
This must be a kind of starvation of the fossil fuel industry, because in the end only the profit line will make them see that there is an alternative. This is what disappointed me. I do not understand why people like Shell are not transforming all their capital and technical and human power into a greener vision for the future.
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