Governments urged to act after oil giants accused of misleading public
The Guardian
Governments urged to act after oil giants accused of misleading public
Documents suggest Shell and BP staff privately downplayed public commitments on climate crisis
Alex Lawson Energy correspondent: Fri 16 Sep 2022 16.42 BST
Campaigners have urged governments to intervene after oil companies were accused of misleading the public about their commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
Oil and gas companies including Britain’s Shell and BP were urged to “stop their deception” this week as the US House committee on oversight and reform released documents showing that oil industry executives privately downplayed their public messages on efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
The memo claimed that internal BP documents highlighted how carbon capture and storage (CCS) – a nascent technology that involves inserting CO2 emissions into underground rock formations – could “enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond”.
Congressional investigators also unearthed an internal Shell email discussing carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) in which an executive said: “We want to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large.”
The committee said internal Shell messaging guidance – developed to “insulate Shell” from lawsuits about “greenwashing” and “misleading investors” on the climate crisis – calls on employees to emphasise that net zero emissions is “a collective ambition for the world” rather than a “Shell goal or target”.
The guidance tells employees: “Please do not give the impression that Shell is willing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to levels that do not make business sense.”
Shell lost a landmark ruling in the Dutch courts last year, when a judge ordered it to cut its global carbon emissions by 45% by the end of 2030 compared with 2019 levels. Campaigners hope the incoming chief executive, Wael Sawan, whose appointment was announced on Thursday, can increase the company’s investment in green energy.
The committee said that, after Shell posted on Twitter asking others what they would do to reduce emissions, a communications executive wrote privately that he agreed this could be seen as “gaslighting” the public. “We are, after all, in a tweet like this implying others need to sacrifice without focusing on ourselves,” he said.
Jamie Peters, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Big oil firms like Shell, Exxon and Chevron can try to gloss over their murky PR image as much as they like, as we’ve seen in the millions of dollars pumped into disingenuous greenwash campaigns by the industry. But though unsurprising, this bombshell disclosure confirms what remains utterly transparent about big oil. That it has every intention to keep on extracting in pursuit of profit, rather than transforming how it operates for the sake of our communities and our planet.
A Shell spokesperson said: “Of the nearly 500,000 pages provided to the committee, the small handful they chose to highlight are evidence of Shell’s extensive efforts to set aggressive targets, evolve its portfolio and meaningfully participate in the ongoing energy transition.”
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Posted in: Big Oil, BP, Business ethics, Business Principles, Chevron, Climate Change, Environment, Exxon Mobil, Fossil Fuels, Gas, Greenwashing, Litigation, Oil, Oil Company Profits, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell, Shell PLC.
Tagged: BP · Chevron · Environment · ExxonMobil · Litigation · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
