Future Beyond Shell: Recent Episodes
Future Beyond Shell
Shell has long been impeding any hope of a Just Transition from the fossil fuel age, making an end to Shell necessary, overdue and inevitable. But what are the pathways to a Future Beyond Shell? If we are serious about putting a stop to the polluting, extractive, colonial oil major, we need to take a good look at the options. Taxing, suing, bankrupting, nationalising: what can we achieve with these strategies?
Sign up for the podcast series to explore how multinationals like Shell could, and eventually will, meet their end.
Russia’s economy depends heavily on oil and gas revenues, and activists and scholars have made the case that Russian President Putin’s war on Ukraine is a fossil-fueled war. In the first 100 days, Russian fossil fuel exports earned Russia 93 billion US dollars. Indeed, various countries, particularly in Europe, have become heavily dependent on Russian exports of fossil fuels. In 2021, Russia supplied 40% of Europe’s gas and a quarter of Europe’s oil needs. Russia also exported heavily to China.
In this context, various countries including European Union member states have been scrambling to find alternative sources to disentangle themselves from the Russian economy and ramp up sanctions against Russia. However, action has been uneven and slow. The United States, Britain, Australia and Canada have enacted an embargo of Russian oil and gas, and the EU has put in place a plan to phase out 90% of Russian oil imports by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, China and India are taking advantage of low prices for Russian oil and gas to increase imports from Russia. Oil and gas prices elsewhere have soared due to a mix of price-gouging by carbon majors, the war in Ukraine and lasting COVID impacts, with consequences across the world. For example, while oil-producing African nations like Nigeria might be able to profit from high oil prices, the local population cannot afford to buy the oil that they themselves produce. It also remains to be seen whether the countries that have put embargoes in place will speed up their transition to renewable energy instead of simply look for fossil fuels elsewhere.
In this shifting context, this second episode in our two-part series on Putin’s war on Ukraine and oil and gas tackles three big issues. First, it looks at the relationship between revenues from fossil fuel exports and Russia’s attack on Ukraine; second, the challenges and pay-offs of divestment from and embargoes of Russian oil and gas, and third, what possibilities for a future beyond fossil fuels the situation opens up. How might we set up an energy system that allows us to condemn war and incursions on sovereignty and promotes peace?
In this episode we’ll be speaking to Svitlana Romanko, a leading Ukrainian climate campaigner, environmental lawyer and spokesperson for Stand With Ukraine. As part of this coalition, she has been advocating for a full ban on Russian fossil fuels and a larger fossil fuel phaseout as a way to undermine Russia’s expansion attempts, to eliminate oil-driven war and to stop climate change.
Oil and war are often tightly bound together, both in terms of war’s causes, and the outcomes. Indeed, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused massive shifts in the oil and gas industry. Soon after the start of the war in February 2022, BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and Equinor announced their exit from Russia – an unprecedented response to a conflict situation. The industry has always managed to navigate around geopolitical conflict, with producers claiming inherent neutrality due to their inability to choose the location and owners of oil and gas reserves. Choosing to outwardly condemn Russia’s invasion breaks with that tradition. Testing 123
Shell in particular announced it will drop its joint ventures with Russian gas giant Gazprom. This includes a 27.5 percent stake in the Sakhalin-II liquefied natural gas facility, a 50 percent stake in the Salym Petroleum Development of oil in Western Siberia and a 50 percent stake in a joint venture for oil and gas exploration on the Gydan Peninsula. Shell will also cut ties with the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project.
But how do we interpret these decisions? Is there a genuine commitment to sacrifice profits in solidarity with the people in Ukraine or even in favor of a just energy transition? In May oil giant Shell reported a record first-quarter profit of $9.1 billion, boosted by higher oil and gas prices, among other things.
In this first episode of a two-part series on Putin’s war on Ukraine and oil and gas, we focus on Shell’s business prospects and what room there is to wind Shell down. First, we ask, what does Shell’s and other fossil fuel companies’ exit from Russia mean for Shell economically and for the future of its business? Second, can such an exit somehow contribute towards a just energy transition?
We will be speaking with Laurie van der Burg, co-manager of the Global Public Finance Campaign at Oil Change International. Previously, she worked on the court case holding Shell accountable to greenhouse gas emissions targets, and knows the ins and outs of the industry’s financial side.
Show Notes
at 05 mins, Marie-Sol mentions ‘the beginning of the war, the invasion of Russia’ by which she means the beginning of this renewed attack by Russia on Ukraine – this is part of a conflict that has been ongoing since at least 2014, particularly in Crimea and the Donbas region.
Shell’s exit from Russia: https://www.shell.com/media/news-and-media-releases/2022/shell-intends-to-exit-equitypartnerships-
held-with-gazprom-entities.html
Shell’s first quarter profits: https://www.shell.com/investors/results-and-reporting/quarterly-results/2022/q1-
2022/jcr_content/par/toptasks_1119141760.stream/1651682600274/4beba247de9a1e5dcdbc1685abfdc95d07aca3f7/q1-
2022-quarterly-press-release.pdf
Oil and gas windfall profits in the UK in the wake of the war: https://priceofoil.org/2022/05/03/companies-set-to-make-11-6-
billion-windfall-on-uk-oil-and-gas-in-2022/
US oil and gas profiting from high wartime oil prices: https://priceofoil.org/2022/03/29/us-oil-and-gas-companies-set-tomake-
tens-of-billions-more-from-wartime-oil-prices-in-2022/
European and US energy companies’ contribution to Russian war chest: https://priceofoil.org/2022/03/25/european-and-usenergy-
companies-responsible-for-nearly-100-billion-to-putins-war-chest/
Beyond Oil and Gas Coalition (of governments who are going to stop signing new licenses for fossil fuel extraction): https://beyondoilandgasalliance.com/
Ember and IEEFA reports on supporting the EU’s energy needs using renewable energy and energy efficiency rather than
new infrastructure and therefore cease using imported Russian gas (in addition to the oil embargo): https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/eu-can-stop-russian-gas-imports-by-2025/
https://ieefa.org/resources/us-can-increase-lng-exports-europe
In this episode and the next few, we are taking a slightly different approach. We want to take stock of a few major events in recent months, how they have affected Shell and the larger oil and gas sector, and what this means for strategies to dismantle Shell.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the fact that Shell moved its headquarters to the UK in January 2022. The biggest change that this shift of headquarters brings is that the fiscal residency of the company will move from the Netherlands to the UK.
In other words, the taxes Shell pays over profits, the rules for issuing shares and other financial decisions the company takes must all fall in line with UK law, rather than Dutch law. But what does this mean for the company and its shareholders? And more importantly, what does this mean for movements against Shell and for the project of dismantling Shell?
We speak to two experts to tackle these questions. We will speak with Olanrewaju Suraju, anti-corruption campaigner and chairman of the NGO HEDA Resource Center, or the Human and Environmental Development Agenda. We will also be speaking to Nicholas Hildyard, founder of the Corner House, a research and advocacy organization that advances environmental and social justice by supporting democratic and community movements. They have worked extensively on a court case against Shell and Italian oil and gas company ENI – they are suing the companies for corruption in the process of acquiring oil field OPL 245, an offshore oil field in Nigeria, in the Niger Delta region.
Olanrewaju, or Lanre, as we call him, was attacked and beaten at his home in Nigeria alongside his wife at the end of March 2022. The assailants stole valuables including phones, computers and a car. This was almost certainly an attack on the anti-corruption and human rights work that Lanre and his organization HEDA have been doing, and we condemn it.
Show Notes
How do multinationals operate (Dutch-language): https://www.groene.nl/artikel/hoe-multinationals-opereren
Shell plans to move headquarters to the UK: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59288593
Information on the OPL 245 case: https://opl245papers.org/en/
Info video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mquop7Dyveg&t=124s
The attack on Olanrewaju Suraju in March 2022 and subsequent statements: https://saharareporters.com/2022/03/29/breaking-gunmen-attack-heda-chairman-suraju-family-threaten-kill-activist-and-wife-steal
Anti-corruption organizations in Nigeria CACOL and PWYP react: https://alayode.com/2022/03/31/anti-corruption-groups-condemn-attack-on-hedas-chairman-olarewaju-surajus-home/
Dutch climate movement organization Code Rood statement: https://code-rood.org/en/2022/04/08/nigerian-anti-corruption-activist-attacked/
In order to identify and assess the tools it may take to dismantle a corporation like Shell, we first need a good understanding of how the company operates in the context of the global political economy. What tactics have helped Shell to become the powerful oil and gas major it is today and which ones is it likely to pursue in future?
Looking at the oil and gas sector at large we see that Europe’s listed oil companies lost a total of €360bn in market value and Shell has nursed an incredible 60% declinein market value in 2020. How has this changed in 2021? Is this the metric by which Shell and the larger fossil fuel sector measure their performance? What do the coming years hold for Shell, and how does this inform the tactics we use to unravel their power?
Additionally, over the past two years, the fossil fuel sector has received massive bailouts due to the COVID pandemic. The Bank of England bought debt from Shell as part of its COVID stimulus program and the company was able to buy cheap bonds from the European Central Bank as part of the bank’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program (PEPP). Shell received this financial support on top of ongoing subsidies from Dutch, British and other governments, and continues to lobby these governments for favorable policies. Why do we keep supporting the corporations that are pushing us to the brink of climate collapse and what does it tell us about the power that these corporations hold?
Our guest for this episode is Dr. Rhodante Ahlers, a researcher in the area of social, ecological and technological interactions. She co-authored the report ‘Still Playing the Shell Game’ as part of the Future Beyond Shell project.
Show notes
Future Beyond Shell report ‘Still Playing the Shell Game’: https://futurebeyondshell.org/the-shell-game/
Two major benchmarks of oil prices: Brent oil prices: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?type=wti&op=1
Western Texas Intermediate oil prices: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?type=wti&op=1
Shell’s current market capitalization: https://companiesmarketcap.com/shell/marketcap/
Shell’s lobbying on the new Gazprom pipeline Nord Stream 2, which will go from Russia to Western Europe: https://gasnews.eu/all-news/shell-influenced-the-governments-stance-on-the-construction-of-nord-stream-2/
Original Dutch-language article: https://www.ftm.nl/artikelen/shell-invloed-kabinetsbeleid-russisch-gas
Dutch government paid ‘compensation’ to Shell and Exxon for closing the gasfields in Groningen, to the tune of 90 million euros (Dutch language): https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/4844371/minister-wiebes-misgelopen-inkomsten-shell-exxon-90-miljoen
Corporate Europe Observatory on lobbying practices at the EU level : https://corporateeurope.org/en/lobbying-the-eu
Dutch advertising watchdog rules that Shell’s advertising falsely promotes its fuels as ‘carbon-neutral’: https://www.euractiv.com/section/all/news/shells-promotion-of-carbon-offsets-is-greenwashing-rules-dutch-watchdog/
Dutch government grants 2.4 billion in subsidies to Shell and Exxon for carbon capture and storage project: https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/dutch-govt-grants-24-bln-subsidies-huge-carbon-storage-project-2021-05-09/
In times of economic crisis, bankruptcy has been a frequent fate for struggling corporations. Given the troubled state of the fossil fuel sector, almost 250 oil and gas companies could file for bankruptcy protection in the US by the end of 2021. This ismore than the previous five years combined.
But what does filing for bankruptcy actually mean for a corporation? What patterns can we observe from fossil fuel companies that have declared bankruptcy in the past? What are key elements to consider in a restructuring process that might result from bankruptcy, like spin offs or asset sales? How do these issues stack up when we are looking at bankruptcy as a way to wind down the fossil fuel industry?
In this episode, we will explore lessons from past bankruptcies in the fossil fuel sector, and what they might mean for Shell. While most people agree that Shell is not currently close to filing bankruptcy, bold climate policy and emissions targets set by governments might bring Shell closer to the edge. This is how we arrive at the question, would letting Shell go bankrupt be a reasonable strategy? Could letting big polluters go bankrupt finally facilitate a Just Transition away from fossil fuels? Or will they simply leave workers and impacted communities to fend for themselves in the midst of abandoned fossil infrastructure?
In this episode we will be speaking to Dr. Joshua Macey, assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. He specializes in environmental and energy law as well as in bankruptcy and financial regulation.
Show Notes
Joshua Macey and Jackson Salovaara’s paper on Bankruptcy in the coal sector: https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2019/04/Macey-Salovaara-71-Stan.-L.-Rev.-879.pdf
Peabody case, where coal company Peabody Energy spun off obligations to workers and retirees under a new company, which was doomed to go bankrupt: https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/peabody-energy-creates-company-designed-to-fail-dumps-pensioners-and-union-members-in-it/
In September 2021, Shell sold a number of assets in the Permian basin (i.e. infrastructure) to Conoco Phillips, but these result in continued extraction: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/20/shell-nears-9point5-billion-deal-to-sell-west-texas-oil-field-assets-to-conocophillips.html
More information on the Fieldwood case, where companies like BP and Chevron tried to evade obligations for clean-up: https://grist.org/accountability/oil-gas-bankruptcy-fieldwood-energy-petroshare/
Carbon pricing & trading has come to dominate the debate on how to curb climate change. Its proponents span the field, from governments and corporations to parts of the white climate movement in the Global North. Simply put, with carbon pricing, a price is put on carbon emissions (usually CO2) by either taxing its production or by creating an emissions trading system. Such policies aim to make carbon pollution more expensive, to reduce demand and to eventually create incentives for companies to invest in renewable energy.
Shell has consistently supported carbon emissions trading and, in certain areas of the world, carbon taxes. Beyond carbon capture and nature-based solutions, it promotes reliance on carbon markets as a core climate action strategy that is in line with their business goals. But how successful have these neoliberal tools really been in moving us towards an anti-colonial and anti-capitalist future? Can some of their inefficiencies be resolved by tweaking market rules or is the idea of carbon pricing simply doomed to fail based on an inherently flawed logic?
For this discussion we will be joined by Dr. Tamra Gilbertson, she is the Climate Change and Forest Policy Advisor at Indigenous Environmental Network or IEN. She is also a longtime activist, scholar and educator on the topic of carbon pricing.
Show Notes
The UN Agenda 21 report on sustainable development in the 21st Century: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/outcomedocuments/agenda21
Kyoto Protocol 1997: https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol
CDM or Clean Development Mechanism: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-kyoto-protocol/mechanisms-under-the-kyoto-protocol/the-clean-development-mechanism
Short report that looks at the history of the Emissions Trading Systems we have today: https://co2colonialism.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Carbon-Pricing-A-Critical-Perspective-for-Community-Resistance-Online-Version.pdf
A list of terms that we refer to, like cap and trade, REDD, carbon capture and nature-based solutions: https://co2colonialism.org/list-of-terms/
Education toolkit from IEN on carbon pricing: https://co2colonialism.org/
IEN’s media platform, Indigenous Rising, which will be launching a podcast of its own soon hopefully during COP26: https://indigenousrising.org/
Indigenous Environmental Network’s website: http://ienearth.org/
Tamra refers to Turtle Island in the episode, which is the name that a number of Indigenous nations use for the land mass known as ‘North America’.
This past year, a major court case against Shell, known as the klimaatzaak or climate case in the Netherlands, made headlines around the world as it ruled that the oil and gas company must reduce its carbon emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. This was, to our knowledge, the first time a court case held a company responsible in the future. Around the world, similar climate cases have cropped up against governments, fossil fuel companies and other organizations responsible for the climate crisis; more than 1500 climate-related court cases have been brought worldwide.
In this episode, we will discuss the role of court cases and strategic litigation as tactics to counter the power of fossil fuel companies at large, and Shell in particular. How effective is litigation in actually holding fossil fuel companies accountable and preventing disastrous climate breakdown? Can they account for the international nature of Shell and its contributions to global emissions? Are court cases a key tool to move towards a Future Beyond Shell?
Our guest in this first episode of two on court cases is Nine de Pater from Friends of the Earth Netherlands, known as Milieudefensie in the Netherlands.
Show notes
Some more info on the court case brought by Milieudefensie here: https://en.milieudefensie.nl/climate-case-shell
And here: https://www.foei.org/features/historic-victory-judge-forces-shell-to-drastically-reduce-co2-emissions
And for the law nerds, more detail: http://climatecasechart.com/climate-change-litigation/non-us-case/milieudefensie-et-al-v-royal-dutch-shell-plc/
Nine mentions Code Rood, a grassroots organization in the Netherlands that organizes civil disobedience actions against the fossil fuel industry: https://code-rood.org/en/what-is-code-rood/
The UN Guiding Principles reporting framework that corporations are to follow (UNGP): https://www.ungpreporting.org/
There is a long history of court cases against fossil fuel companies on human rights issues. For example, the Ogoni community, an ethnic group in the Niger river delta, has brought many court case against Shell because of oil spills, the pollution of rivers that are sources of drinking water as well as sources of income, through fishing. Other court cases they have brought center on prosecuting Shell for complicity in executions, torture and crimes against humanity in bids to repress protests against Shell’s activities in Ogoniland, as well as bribery and corruption in the purchase of oilfields.
In this episode, we will continue our conversation on the role of strategic litigation as a tactic to counter the power of fossil fuel companies at large, and Shell in particular. How effective is litigation in actually holding fossil fuel companies accountable, in terms of historical environmental injustices like pollution in Ogoniland in Nigeria, and in terms of shifting power to oppressed, often racialized communities? Are court cases generally ‘too little, too late,’ or do they have genuinely transformative power? Are they a key tool to move towards a Future Beyond Shell?
Our guest in this second episode on court cases is Celestine AkpoBari, founder of Ogoni Solidarity Forum NIgeria and People Advancement Center.
Show notes
Celestine mentions a number of court cases by various Ogoni communities or villages, as well as one or two brought by other Nigerian communities:
Bodo community:
https://www.leighday.co.uk/latest-updates/cases-and-testimonials/cases/shell-bodo/
Ogale and Bille community:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/feb/12/nigeria-communities-can-bring-claims-against-shell-uk-supreme-court-rules
Goi, Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo communities:
https://en.milieudefensie.nl/news/nigerian-farmers-and-friends-of-the-earth-win-oilpollution-case-against-shell-in-historic-ruling
Ejama-Ebubu:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/08/12/after-decades-oilgiant-shell-agrees-pay-111-million-destruction-nigeria
Ken Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP’s case:
https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/ourcases/wiwa-et-al-v-royal-dutch-petroleum-et-al
The above case was further taken on by widows of the murdered Ogoni Nine:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/one-nigerian-widow-vs-shell/
Celestine also mentions the UNEP report of 2011 on the scale of destruction in the Niger Delta region:
https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/disasters-conflicts/where-wework/nigeria/environmental-assessment-ogoniland-report
In this final episode, we consider recent proposals to take the fossil fuel industry into the public ownership: specifically, into the ownership of a national government. These proposals argue that nationalization towards a managed phaseout of the industry allows countries to transition and democratize our energy systems in a just and effective manner, through central planning. This means we can support workers in the energy sector in training for new jobs as we transition, and ensure clean-up happens in marginalized, often racialized communities who have been on the frontlines of extraction. It would allow us to democratize control over our energy systems, allowing local communities to make decisions over their lives and neighborhoods. In short, advocates argue that it would allow us to finally put people before profit.
There are a number of pathways to nationalization. In Shell’s case, as a British and Dutch-owned company, we will explore where such a nationalization might take place, and a few of the mechanisms, as well as various implications of public ownership. Would a nationalization mitigate global warming to 1.5C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement? How can we ensure we actually wind Shell down once we take it into public ownership? How might nationalization support fossil fuel workers in a transition?
We also hope to explore the consequences of nationalization in terms of reproducing global colonial dynamics. For example, Nigeria is a former British colony, and its economy is heavily tied to oil production through Shell. This same industry has destroyed watersheds, ecologies and fisheries which local communities depend on. Would these communities and others worldwide be considered, in a nationalization process that might take place in the UK or the Netherlands?
In this final episode of the season, we are joined by two guests. We have Carla Santos Skandier, manager of the Climate and Energy Program at the Democracy Collaborative who has worked extensively on the case to nationalize the fossil fuel industry. We also welcome Dr. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University, who has written in both public and academic spaces on climate colonialism.
Show notes
Reports and resources on nationalizing the fossil fuel industry:
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/OutofTime.pdf
https://newrepublic.com/article/156941/moderate-proposal-nationalize-fossil-fuel-industry
https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/case-public-ownership-fossil-fuel-industry
Article on the nationalization of Shell:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/07/its-time-to-nationalize-shell-private-oil-companies-are-no-longer-fit-for-purpose
Carla refers to the PPP program, this is the Payment Protection Program.
Olufemi Taiwo on climate colonialism: https://theconversation.com/how-a-green-new-deal-could-exploit-developing-countries-111726
Get ready for the 9th of November when we will be launching the first season of the Future Beyond Shell podcast!
Shell has long been impeding any hope of a Just Transition from the fossil fuel age, making an end to Shell necessary, overdue and inevitable. But what are the pathways to a Future Beyond Shell? If we are serious about putting a stop to the polluting, extractive, colonial oil major, we need to take a good look at the options. Taxing, suing, bankrupting, nationalising: what can we achieve with these strategies?
Sign up for the podcast series to explore how multinationals like Shell could, and eventually will, meet their end.