The Prelude first received gas from its subsea wells in December 2018 and by the end of June 2019 had produced 2.32 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, according to emissions data released by the Clean Energy Regulator today.

Conservation Council of WA director Piers Verstegen said the emissions data was absolutely shocking and suggested that Shell was making no effort to reduce Prelude’s emissions. read more

Jillian Ambrose: Tue 24 Mar 2020 07.00 GMT

Parliament’s pension fund has made record investments in renewable energy and cut its exposure to fossil fuel companies to bring MPs’ pensions in line with the government’s climate action targets.

The move is a victory for the 360 serving and former MPs who have been pushing for the pension fund’s investments to fall in line with the government’s climate agenda.

The annual report showed that the fund has decreased its investment in BP by almost two-thirds in the past year, to £4.4m, and cut its holdings in Shell by a quarter, to £8m. read more

The UK’s biggest fund manager has bowed to client pressure and agreed to launch its first fossil fuel-free ethical pension fund later this year.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM), which has been one of the most outspoken fund managers over the climate crisis, made the decision after a number of clients raised concerns that stocks such as Shell were still being included in its range of ethical funds.

Those clients include PensionBee – an online pension provider that handles £750m-worth of client assets for more than 75,000 customers – which is expected to be among the new fund’s first investors. read more

Matthew Taylor: Mon 9 Mar 2020 22.00 GMT

Shell is to end its relationship with two of the UK’s leading arts institutions amid growing concern about big oil’s role in the escalating climate crisis.

The fossil fuel corporation has confirmed it is not renewing its corporate membership deals with the Southbank Centre and the British Film Institute (BFI) when they come up for renewal later this year.

Campaigners say the decision underlines the shrinking “social licence” of fossil fuel companies in the midst of the climate crisis. It follows similar moves by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), National Theatre and National Galleries Scotland, which have all severed ties with major oil companies in the last year. read more

Extracts

…the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) …  represents 29 of Europe’s main fossil fuel operators, including Total, Shell, BP and ExxonMobil.

Such firms, their business founded on extracting fossil fuels, have an interest in delaying or undermining policies designed to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis.

FULL ARTICLE

EXTRACTS (Entire New York Magazine article can be read here)

Since 2017, when I published a book about American millennials, I’ve had the occasional cold call from corporations to come talk about my work, all but one of which I’ve turned down. But last fall, the Shell Scenarios team — as in Royal Dutch Shell, one of the biggest oil companies in the world — offered me £2,000 in exchange for a 15-minute talk and my participation in a group exercise. Its internal corporate think tank was holding a daylong conference about how generational change would affect the hopefulness projected in what the company calls the “Sky Scenario,” which it describes as “a technically possible but challenging pathway for society to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.” I’m not a climate expert, but apparently I qualify as a generational whisperer, at least to Shell, and to talk to me about global warming, the giant energy conglomerate wanted to fly me to London from Philadelphia, business class. I warned them that I couldn’t keep their money and asked if I’d need to sign an NDA. When they said no, I saw an opportunity to report on the oil company, undercover while in plain sight, without technically lying to anyone. It was too good to pass up. I said yes, then I emailed my editor. read more

EXTRACTS FROM AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF AN ARTICLE AUTHORED BY INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS BAS VAN BEEK, ALEXANDER BEUNDER, JILLES MAST AND MEREL DE BUCK.

This article is part of the Shell Papers, a joint research project conducted by Platform Authentieke Journalistiek and Follow the Money, into the ties between the Dutch government and the oil giant. In April 2019, we filed a total of 17 FOIA requests, demanding copies of all Shell-related documents from nine ministries, three provinces and five municipalities. As of March 2020, the FOIA procedures are still ongoing. You can track their progress here: read more

By Nick Cunningham – Mar 01, 2020, 4:00 PM CST

ExxonMobil saw its share price nosedive by roughly 15 percent in the past week, one in a series of oil companies that finds itself in a freefall.

Four other oil majors – Chevron, BP, Shell and Total – also declined sharply, dragged down by the worst weekly loss for oil prices in more than four years.

But the problems for the oil majors run much deeper than the coronavirus, and their share price declines have been underway for quite some time. read more

Radio 1 DJ Greg James was paid £100,000 by oil giant Shell to front an online campaign which plugged the company’s ‘green’ credentials.

The Breakfast Show presenter, who is paid £229,999 a year by the BBC, is the latest star to be accused of cashing in on their public profiles by moonlighting for corporate firms.

The 34-year-old, who broadcasts to around 5.6 million listeners each Monday to Thursday, fronted a five-part series for Shell called The Great Travel Hack.

The Top Gear-style programme followed two teams of competitors racing from London to Istanbul while using environmentally friendly vehicles. read more

February 27, 2020

Oil giant Shell, gas group Gasunie and Groningen’s port authority are joining forces to build a massive offshore wind farm and hydrogen plant in the northern province, Dutch media reported on Thursday.

The plan, dubbed NortH2, will be formally presented on Thursday afternoon but will, the companies say, be one of the ‘biggest renewable energy projects in the world’.

The project is still at the planning stage and definitive investment decisions still have to be taken. read more

…it is more than halfway through the process of selling out of its holdings in oil majors BP, Shell and Total.

LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Catholic religious order Jesuits in Britain will ditch fossil fuel companies from its $500 million equity portfolio by the end of the year, it said on Wednesday, citing corporate failure to respond quickly to the threat of climate change.

Asset managers responsible for more than $14 trillion have divested from the sector in recent years, though many more prefer to remain invested and engage with companies to change their business strategies.

Some companies have sought to address investor concern, including BP’s pledge this month to reduce its carbon emissions, though critics have said that such measures have not gone far enough. read more

As political and economic tides shift, pressure on Shell—from shareholders, evolving new technologies, and climate-aware consumers—to reinvent itself is mounting, while legal action has been taken against the company over its climate impacts.

Shell’s own research warned more than a quarter-century ago that burning fossil fuels posed catastrophic threats, yet it continued to pump billions into climate-disrupting ventures.

Shell has come under fire for its fierce campaigns against climate action. According to reports, it is among oil firms that spend millions a year lobbying to block or influence climate policies. read more

By Sarah McFarlane: Updated Feb. 24, 2020 10:33 am ET

Major oil companies are working hard to articulate a vision for their future, but the energy sector’s poor performance shows that many investors aren’t buying it.

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC and Total SA have launched plans to turn themselves into lower-carbon businesses. But with low oil prices pressuring the industry’s economics and many investors saying it is too early to know whether the intended transformations will generate significant returns, there is growing skepticism on Wall Street over the… read more

English translation of an article published 23 Feb 2020 by the Dutch Financial Times (FD)

Dutch industry funded climate skeptic Frits Böttcher

From our editor

According to FTM, Shell is one of the companies that Böttcher financed. Photo: ANP

In brief

• Climate skeptic Frits Böttcher received at least one million guilders fom the Dutch business community in the 1990s.
• At the request of donors, he wrote activist papers in which he denied the existence of the greenhouse effect.
• Partly due to his work, there was little support for sustainable climate policy at the end of the last decade.

Between 1989 and 1998, Frits Böttcher received at least one million guilders (€ 450,000) from 24 Dutch companies, including Shell, NAM, AkzoNobel and DSM. With that money he set up an international network of climate skeptics. At the request of the donors, he also wrote activist papers and articles in which he denied the existence of the greenhouse effect. This is the result of research by Follow the Money (FTM) and the Authentic Journalism Platform (PAJ), who have access to the personal archive of Böttcher, who died in 2008. read more