New technology to cut emissions needs funding: oil major

The FTSE 100 oil giant Shell has called for taxpayer subsidies to help it cut pollution by trapping carbon dioxide emissions underground.

Carbon capture and storage is seen by many as vital to meeting global pollution reduction targets. It involves “scrubbing” pollutants from factory and power station emissions, transporting the gas to special locations and storing it to avoid damage to the atmosphere.

The government is ploughing millions of pounds into getting the technology up and running by the mid-2020s, but the question of who pays to help combat climate change has proved controversial, with complaints over increases to electricity bills to subsidise renewable energy and pay for smart meters. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad.

Shell is investing $300 million in planting trees

Bert van Dijk: 9 April 2019

Shell will invest $ 300 million in planting trees in the coming three years. As part of the global investment program, Shell is investing more than € 17 million in the outside fund of Staatsbosbeheer. Both organizations want to plant more than five million trees in the coming twelve years. It is about the largest planting in the past hundred years. Shell announced this on Monday.

The global program must help Shell to achieve its goals of reducing CO₂.

Cooperation with business

“We invest in the Netherlands in, among other things, offshore wind energy, solar energy, electric mobility, biofuels and energy efficiency, but CO₂ compensation is also an important part of achieving climate goals,” said Marjan van Loon, president Director of Shell Nederland in a statement. read more

From next week Wednesday, Shell will offer customers in the Netherlands the option to pay one cent extra per liter of fuel. The Dutch oil and gas giant will then use that extra money to compensate for CO2 emissions. “This offers customers in the Netherlands an interim solution as long as electric driving is not yet affordable for everyone”, Marjan van Loon, director of Shell Nederland, said to NOS.

According to Shell, that one extra cent per liter is enough to drive in a “CO2 neutral” way. The voluntary contribution from customers will be invested in CO2 compensation projects, such as planting trees in Peru and Indonesia. The company invests abroad in such projects because the Netherlands does not yet have a certified CO2 compensation system, Shell said. read more

Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Total and BP together have spent more than $1 billion on public relations since the Paris Agreement.

• By Alexander C. Kaufman
• Chris D’Angelo, HuffPost US
• 22 March 2019

The world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies are increasing their investments in oil and gas, putting a combined $110 billion in new fossil-fuel production.

Meanwhile, those firms are projected to spend just $3.6 billion on low-carbon investments, such as biofuels and renewables, according to a new analysis that Influence Map, a British nonprofit that analyzes corporate influence on climate policy, derived from industry data and numbers buried in company disclosures.

The reckless disparity comes just months after the United Nations warned that the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuel use over the next decade or face catastrophic global warming of at least 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. read more

Spreadsheet-analysing investors in control of trillion-dollar funds are forcing polluters to change

Anjli Raval and Attracta Mooney in London: 27 December 2018

When an activist shareholder group last year launched a campaign to force Royal Dutch Shell to set hard targets for cutting carbon emissions, just 6 per cent of those eligible to vote backed the plan. Yet within months Shell had announced an “ambition” to halve its carbon footprint by 2050… This December it pledged to set firm short-term emissions targets from 2020 that will be tied to executive pay. “If we don’t meet them there will be consequences to my salary and others,” said Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive. FULL FT ARTICLE read more

SOURCE

FULL ARTICLE

Shell thinks that the likelihood of Shell having the same fate as photo company Kodak is small. “We are thinking a lot about Kodak moments.” Kodak, a long-time powerhouse in photography, proved unable to adequately respond to the rapid development of digital photography and went bankrupt.

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

‘I have to make sure that Shell does not become a dodo’

‘We are also a marketing company that serves customers from 45,000 branches. These are more branches than McDonald’s. “Photo: Peter Boer

Bert van Dijk

Shell invests $ 1 billion a year to $ 2 billion in clean energy, but still more than ten times in oil and gas. Does not the mega-concern cope with the same fate as Kodak, the photo company that went bankrupt because it reacted too late to changes in the environment?

A conversation with Jeremy Bentham, head of Shells scenario department.

Bentham (60) is the proud owner of the Dodo. A drawing of the extinct bird is framed in the room of the Shell driver. The internal ‘award’ has been passed on to Shell drivers since 1976 as ‘a warning to us all’, as is shown in the drawing.

Bentham is the eighth ‘custodian’ of the Dodo. ‘It is my responsibility to ensure that Shell does not become a dodo that reacts too late to changes in its environment.’ read more

Shell boost for electric car owners: More petrol stations will be fitted with electric car charge points under a new nationwide plan.

Customers quit First Utility, the supplier Shell bought to take on the Big Six: The UK energy supplier acquired by Royal Dutch Shell as a vehicle for growth has lost tens of thousands of customers since agreeing the deal. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

Maarten Wetselaar: ‘There has been a period of thirty years in which the industry and we also only talked about the largest oil platforms that were built and the deepest wells that were drilled.’ Photo: Michel de Groot

‘The energy transition gives power back to the customer’

Bert van Dijk: Energy: 12 Sept 2018

ShellRDSA € 27.85 + 1.05% is still an oil and gas multinational, but is sorting for a future in which it will become one of the largest electricity companies. ‘We are faced with a revolution’, says Maarten Wetselaar, member of the Executive Board of Shell in an interview with the FD. He is responsible, among other things, for the New Energies division that was established two years ago. read more

Emily Gosden: July 6, 2018

Royal Dutch Shell would be “foolhardy” to adopt firm targets for cutting its carbon emissions because it would open itself up to lawsuits, the company’s boss has said.

The energy group has set an “ambition” to halve the carbon footprint of its energy products by 2050, which it says would put it in line with the Paris climate goals, but has resisted calls for binding commitments.

Ben van Beurden, Shell chief executive, said that the group did not want to “put ourselves at the mercy of a legal challenge”. read more

Reuters Staff: Tuesday 29 May 2018

LONDON (Reuters) – Friends of the Earth plans to file a lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), accusing the oil company of failing to act on climate change, the environmental activist group said on Tuesday.

Shell has set out “ambitions” to halve carbon emissions by 2050 and expand in renewables, but the Anglo-Dutch company has come under pressure from investors and activists to reduce its carbon footprint and comply with the 2015 international Paris climate agreement. read more

By Jeremy Hodges, Lauren Leatherby and Kartikay Mehrotra
May 24, 2018

In the global fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation. From California to the Philippines, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing the biggest polluters and national governments over the effects of climate change at a break-neck pace. “The courts are our last, best hope at this moment of irreversible harm to our planet and life on it,” said Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, a legal challenge center in the U.S. that is involved in climate change litigation across 13 countries, including the U.S., Pakistan and Uganda. Cases by San Francisco and Oakland face a motion to dismiss the lawsuit today in a California federal court, where Chevron Corp., BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhilips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc will argue that remedies and penalties for climate change are a matter for lawmakers, not a single judge. read more

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Kelly Gilblom: 22 May 2018, 14:48 BST

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has seen off the two most debated issues at its shareholder meeting — the boss’s pay and responsibility in tackling climate change. But not without a degree of drama.

The company won the backing of about 94 percent of shareholders to not set specific emission-reduction targets, with Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden saying it is taking “leadership” on the issue. However, while almost 75 percent of investors also approved the remuneration report, it faced stiffer resistance after an influential advisory firm asked them to reject the package. read more

May 22, 2018

A group of 26 large institutional investors have petitioned Shell to formulate concrete goals in its effort to address the terms of the Paris climate accord.

The 26 investors, which have a total of $7.8trn under management, presented a statement to the Anglo-Dutch energy giant during Shell’s AGM in The Hague. The group of  26 includes HSBC Global Asset Management, AXA Investment Manager, Aegon, Calpers en MN.

In its statement, the investors applauded Shell’s ambition to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% and called on other oil and gas companies to follow suit. read more

Ron Bousso: MAY 22, 2018

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Top investors in Royal Dutch Shell on Tuesday stepped up pressure on the oil and gas giant to commit to hard targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to battle climate change.

Shell has set out “ambitions” to halve carbon emissions by 2050 and expand in renewables energy, which Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said were ground breaking for the oil industry.

To view a graphic on Shell emissions, click: reut.rs/2Iya7Hf

“Nobody else comes close, it is seriously ambitious,” van Beurden said of Shell’s plan at the company’s annual general meeting in The Hague. read more

Jillian Ambrose, energy editor: 20 MAY 2018 • 7:30PM

Britain’s largest shareholder advisory groups have called on investors in Royal Dutch Shell to reject growing demands for the oil giant to take full responsibility for its impact on the environment.

Shell faces a binding shareholder vote tomorrow to decide whether to adopt rigorous accountability standards to bring its operations into line with the Paris climate agreement. Glass Lewis and ISS have urged shareholders to reject the “unduly burdensome” and “problematic” proposal. read more