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Category: Shell

  • Science shows the severe climate consequences of new fossil fuel extraction

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    An offshore drilling platform.
    Mike Mareen/Shutterstock

    Ed Hawkins, University of Reading

    The world has just suffered through its warmest month ever recorded. Heatwaves have swept across southern Europe, the US and China, breaking many temperature records in the process.

    Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades that this type of event will become more frequent as the world continues to warm. The major culprit behind this is the burning of fossil fuels. So it’s extremely concerning that the UK government has announced its intention to grant hundreds of licences for new North Sea oil and gas extraction.

    Although burning fossil fuels to generate power and heat has enabled society to develop and flourish, we are now experiencing the unintended side effects. The carbon dioxide that has been added to the atmosphere is leading to a rise in global temperatures, causing heatwaves to become hotter and downpours more intense. The resulting large-scale disruption and suffering is becoming ever more visible.

    This warming will continue, with worsening climatic consequences, until we reduce global carbon dioxide emissions to “net zero”. After that, we will still have to live and suffer in a warmer climate for generations. The collective choices we make now will matter in the future.

    The small-scale, but high-profile, disruptions caused by Just Stop Oil protesters in the UK are extremely frustrating for many. But their single demand – for no licenses for new UK coal, oil and gas projects – is consistent with the science underpinning the international agreements that the UK has signed.

    Temperatures are rising

    Since the 1860s, the scientific community has understood that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere would warm the climate. And as long ago as 1938, the burning of fossil fuels was linked to the observed rise in both carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. Fast forward to now and global temperatures are warmer, and increasing faster, than at any point in human civilisation.

    In response to the overwhelming scientific evidence, the UK and 193 other nations came together in 2015 to ratify the Paris agreement on climate change. One of the agreed goals is to limit global warming to well below 2℃, and even aim for 1.5℃, compared to the pre-industrial era.

    However, the latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which all governments explicitly endorsed, paints a stark reality. If we burn all of the fossil fuels that we currently have access to, then global warming will exceed 1.5℃ and may reach 2℃.

    To avoid breaching the limits set out by the Paris agreement, some of the coal, oil and gas that we can already extract must remain unburnt. New fossil fuel extraction projects will make it even harder to stop further global warming.

    Build up renewable infrastructure

    There are other options. The UK government’s official advisers, the Climate Change Committee, have put forward a vision for UK power generation consistent with a net zero future. They say that the UK could provide all of its energy needs by 2050 through a combination of renewables, bioenergy, nuclear, hydrogen, storage and demand management, with some carbon capture and storage for fossil gas-based generation in the meantime.

    A family walking dogs on a beach in front of an offshore wind farm.
    The UK can achieve energy security without causing additional global warming.
    Nigel Jarvis/Shutterstock

    If the UK followed the example of China and rapidly increased its investments in renewable energy, then it could achieve energy security without causing additional global warming. China emits the most carbon dioxide of any country in the world. But it is installing more renewable energy generation than the rest of the world combined.

    Rapidly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and not issuing new licenses to extract oil and gas, is the most effective way of minimising future climate-related disruptions. The sooner those with the power to shape our future recognise this, the better.

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    Ed Hawkins, Professor of Climate Science, University of Reading

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

  • ‘The World Burns as Our Dangerous Age of Unreason Fuels the Flames’

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    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

    https://bylinetimes.com/2023/08/01/the-world-burns-as-our-dangerous-age-of-unreason-fuels-the-flames/

    Every political system has its share of charlatans or nutcases who deliberately try to stir up division, embrace conspiracy theories, deny reality or advocate dangerous policies for short-term advantage.  But what do you do when such views are not just held on the political fringe, but are embraced at the heart of government, as is currently happening in the UK? 

    There are plenty of immediate challenges facing the Government – inflation, housing shortages, crumbling infrastructure, struggling public services and immigration. Internationally, conflicts rage in many parts of the world, Iran and North Korea continue to pursue nuclear weapons, and democracy itself is under threat from hostile regimes, such as Russia and China. 

    But by far the biggest long-term threat, which will only make all of these immediate problems harder to tackle, is climate change.

    Climate change is not only already devastating animal and plant life, and exacerbating poor health, famine and poverty in some parts of the world, but also fuelling more conflict within and between states for scarce resources. It is driving migration levels higher and, through melting the polar ice cap, opening up new areas of strategic competition with Russia and China. 

    Climate change is not just a long-term survival threat, but an ongoing, immediate, security, political and economic threat. The evidence is all around, plain to see.

    According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, July was the hottest month on record, possibly the warmest month humanity has ever experienced. The planet’s temperature has surpassed the crucial threshold of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures. Swathes of the American South, the Mediterranean and China have endured devastating heatwaves this summer. Only last week, we saw on our TV screens thousands of desperate British tourists fleeing devastating fires on Greek islands. 

    …

    https://bylinetimes.com/2023/08/01/the-world-burns-as-our-dangerous-age-of-unreason-fuels-the-flames/

  • Conservatives are the ‘political wing of the fossil fuel industry’ as Sunak invites BP and Shell to Downing Street

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    Extinction Rebellion protests at BP
    Extinction Rebellion protests at BP. Banner reads big profits before planet

    https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/conservatives-are-the-political-wing-of-the-fossil-fuel-industry-as-sunak-invites-bp-and-shell-to-downing-street/

    New Global Witness analysis shows that government ministers met with fossil fuel companies 54 times between January and March.

    London, August 1st, 2023 – Between January and March of this year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and climate and energy ministers met with fossil fuel companies 54 times, on average more than once every two days, according to new Global Witness analysis of UK government data. This amounts to around 20 per cent of all lobbying meetings they held in that period. (1)

    This analysis comes as the Times reports that Sunak will meet with fossil fuel bosses on Wednesday, just two days after announcing that the Government would grant 100 new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea.

    Scientists and campaigners have denounced the Government’s plans to U-turn on its climate commitments and “max out” North Sea oil and gas. This would lock the country deeper into a fossil fuel dependency that has left the UK with the highest energy bills in Western Europe.  

    …

    (1)    See Transparency International UK’s database on UK government lobbying, available at openaccess.transparency.org.uk.

    https://www.globalwitness.org/en/press-releases/conservatives-are-the-political-wing-of-the-fossil-fuel-industry-as-sunak-invites-bp-and-shell-to-downing-street/

  • Rishi Sunak’s family firm signed billion-dollar deal with BP before he announced new oil and gas licences

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/rishi-sunaks-family-firm-signed-billion-dollar-deal-with-bp-before-he-announced-new-oil-and-gas-licences/

    Just a coincidence?

    The firm founded by Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law signed a billion-dollar deal with BP just months before the Prime Minister gave the go ahead for new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.

    …

    It’s since come to light that in May, Infosys, the company founded by Sunak’s father-in-law, bagged a huge deal from the global energy company, BP. Byline Times also reported in July 2022 that: “Sunak and his family are intimately linked to the fossil fuel industry through his wife Akshata Murty’s stake in the transnational IT services firm Infosys, one of whose top clients is oil giant Shell.”

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2023/08/rishi-sunaks-family-firm-signed-billion-dollar-deal-with-bp-before-he-announced-new-oil-and-gas-licences/

  • As Planet Burns, Shell Reports $5 Billion in Profits and Plans to Ramp Up Fossil Fuels

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    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
    Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

    “Every house burnt to the ground, every town forced to evacuate, every ecosystem lost to a wildfire is a necessary consequence of a business model like Shell’s.”

    With much of the world reeling from record-shattering heat and devastating wildfires, the London-based oil giant Shell is poised to ramp up its investments in planet-warming fossil fuels after ditching its plan to cut oil production.

    An analysis released Thursday by the rights group Global Witness estimates that Shell’s investments in oil and gas projects are set to surge to around $14.5 billion this year, a 10% increase over 2022. The company is expected to spend far less on what it defines as “renewables and energy solutions.”

    “Fossil fuels are the number one cause of climate breakdown, which is stoking extreme heatwaves, forest fires, and drought,” said Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at Global Witness. “Every house burnt to the ground, every town forced to evacuate, every ecosystem lost to a wildfire is a necessary consequence of a business model like Shell’s, which prioritizes short-term cash grabs over the safety and survivability of our societies.”

    The new analysis came as Shell reported $5.1 billion in second-quarter profits, a major decline compared to the company’s record-setting $11.5 billion in profits during the same period last year. Despite the profit dip, which Shell blamed on falling oil and gas prices, the company announced a 15% quarterly dividend increase and $3 billion in stock buybacks.

    “CEO Wael Sawan’s fossil fuel direction continues to be solely aimed at profit for shareholders,” Nine de Pater, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said in a statement. “This is immoral and completely irresponsible. We are seeing the impact of the climate crisis around the world this summer: the wildfires in Greece and heat records in southern Europe, Algeria, and India, among others, and the floods in Italy and Afghanistan.”

    “Shell’s profits clearly show that the company chooses profits over human lives,” she added.

    Shell, which has known about the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels since the 1970s, announced last month that it intends to boost gas production in the coming years while abandoning its plan to reduce oil production by up to 2% per year.

    In an interview weeks after the announcement, Sawan claimed it would be “dangerous and irresponsible” to curb oil and gas production even as scientists say that’s exactly what’s needed to avert catastrophic warming.

    Global Witness recently estimated that Shell’s reversal on oil production could generate an average of “29 million tonnes of extra carbon per year, almost as much as Denmark emits annually.”

    “By 2030,” the group added, “Shell’s extra estimated emissions would be as much as Spain—one of Europe’s largest polluters—produces in one year.”

    Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).