[ "It will always be profit over people and planet for polluters,"
said one campaigner. "Shell simply cannot be trusted—with either
their own meager targets or our futures."]
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IN ‘CLIMATE-WRECKING’ REVERSAL, SHELL DITCHES PLANS FOR OIL
PRODUCTION CUT AND HIKES DIVIDEND  
[[link removed]]


 

Jake Johnson
June 14, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ "It will always be profit over people and planet for polluters,"
said one campaigner. "Shell simply cannot be trusted—with either
their own meager targets or our futures." _

Protesters demonstrating in Seattle against Shell’s plans to resume
oil exploration in the Arctic. , Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP

 

Shell [[link removed]] announced Wednesday
that it is raising payouts to wealthy shareholders and scrapping plans
to cut oil production by up to 2% annually, a move that environmental
groups said lays bare the futility of relying on fossil fuel
corporations to voluntarily curb their climate-destroying activities.

The London-based company, which more than doubled its annual profits
[[link removed]] last year,
said in a press release
[[link removed]] that
it now intends to "achieve cash flow longevity" by keeping oil
production stable until 2030 and boosting gas production, even as
scientists say a rapid phaseout
[[link removed]] of
fossil fuels is necessary to avert global climate destruction.

"It is unacceptable that Shell is betting on even more short-term
returns to appease shareholders," said Sjoukje van Oosterhout, Climate
Case Shell's lead researcher. "Shell is now throwing in the towel on
reducing oil production and even scaling up gas production."

Shell also announced Wednesday that it is hiking its dividend by 15%,
a change that's set to take effect this quarter. In an additional gift
to shareholders, the company said it plans to buy back at least $5
billion of its own stock in the second half of 2023.

"Record profits, off the back of the energy crisis, should be boosting
up green investment," Jonathan Noronha-Gant, a senior campaigner at
Global Witness, said
[[link removed]] in
a statement Wednesday. "Instead it's shareholder pay-outs and a
doubling down on climate-wrecking fossil fuels."

Shell had previously said its oil and gas production would fall by
1-2% each year through 2030. But as _Bloomberg_reported
[[link removed]],
Shell justified the newly announced shift by claiming it "achieved its
initial output-reduction plan—announced in 2021 amid a focus on
cutting carbon emissions—faster than anticipated."

Noronha-Gant called
[[link removed]] Shell's
announcement a "climate bombshell" that "exposes the hollowness behind
the setting of such a target."

"It will always be profit over people and planet for polluters,"
Noronha-Gant said Wednesday. "Shell simply cannot be trusted—with
either their own meager targets or our futures."

Others responded with similar outrage. Climate scientist Bill
McGuire wrote on Twitter
[[link removed]] that
Shell CEO Wael Sawan "knows exactly what the consequences of this
decision are."

"People will die—are already dying," McGuire tweeted. "I want to see
him jailed—along with all the other CEOs who have been unequivocally
complicit in crimes against humanity. And so should you."

Shell's announcement comes weeks after Carbon Brief released an
analysis
[[link removed]] highlighting
the oil giant's tacit admission that limiting warming to 1.5°C by the
end of the century means an "immediate end to fossil fuel growth."

"Shell had previously claimed
[[link removed]] that
oil and gas production could rise for another decade, even as warming
was limited to 1.5°C," Carbon Brief observed. "The dramatic shift in
its new 'Energy Security Scenarios'
[[link removed]] is
not explicitly acknowledged, but... is hidden in plain sight."

"The immediate end to fossil fuel growth in Shell’s new 1.5°C
scenario marks a dramatic shift from its earlier work, which had
squared the circle between limiting warming to 1.5°C and continuing
to expand oil and gas production by invoking implausibly-large forest
expansion," Carbon Brief added.

Shell insisted Wednesday that it is "aiming to achieve near-zero
methane emissions by 2030" and "net-zero emissions by 2050," but
research released
[[link removed]] earlier
this week showed that such commitments are often meaningless because
companies rarely outline specific steps they plan to take to achieve
their stated targets.

Last month, Friends of the Earth
[[link removed]] Netherlands
published a report
[[link removed]] accusing
Shell of overstating its spending on renewable energy solutions by
including "the sale of flowers and sandwiches at its gas stations" in
the total, along with "biofuels with a high carbon footprint."

"The company continues to contribute to catastrophic climate change,"
the group concluded.

_Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

* Shell Oil
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* Climate Change
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* False Promise
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