Archived press release

Record shell profits under attack

3 February 2005

Shell's record profits, announced today, are only possible because of the burden it places on the rest of society in the form of pollution and climate change, Friends of the Earth said today. This week scientists from around the world have been meeting in Exeter where they have been warning of the terrible threats posed by global warming.

Friends of the Earth's executive director, Tony Juniper, said:

"Huge profits like this are only possible because Shell and other oil companies are able to burden the rest of society with the pollution and climate change that is an inevitable consequence of their business operations. If Shell had to pay for the damage being caused by global warming, these figures would not look so good. Shell should seek future profitability in clean and sustainable energy - not the fossil fuels that now endanger our planet. And the Government must take urgent steps to ensure that they do so."

Friends of the Earth is calling on the Government to:

• Increase subsidies for renewable energy schemes, and end subsidies for fossil fuel projects, including loans through international financial institutions (IFIs)
• Introduce new legal duties on directors - to take reasonable steps to reduce any significant negative social or environmental impacts
• Increase transport fuel duties so as to encourage cleaner vehicles and greener travel patterns
• End tax breaks on North Sea oil

Last week the chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group in Britain, Ron Oxburgh, said that governments should push society towards a world less dependent on fossil fuel given the potentially "disastrous" consequences of climate change. He urged governments in developed countries to introduce taxes, regulations or plans such as the European Union trading scheme to
increase the cost of emitting carbon dioxide [1].

Notes

1. Reported by Reuters, 26 January 2005

2. Shell is currently asking a number of IFI's including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the UK's Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD) for massive loans for the world's largest oil and gas development in Sakhalin, in Russia. As well as contributing significantly to global warming, the project threatens the Western Pacific Grey Whale (the world's most endangered whale species), indigenous lifestyles and the local fishing industry.

[3] Shell is involved in gas flaring in Nigeria. Gas flaring in Nigeria produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all of sub-Saharan Africa combined and is a major source of pollutants that are hazardous to human health. Gas flaring occurs twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust