Every Saturday, we decipher climate issues with François Gemenne, professor at HEC and member of the IPCC, specialist in climate and migration. Saturday October 7: a social movement at the oil company Shell.
It is a dispute that has been little talked about, but which is nevertheless quite significant: within the oil giant Shell, anger is brewing. Employees criticize management for abandoning investments in renewable energies, to concentrate on immediate profits from oil. And so they published an open letter to management, which is obviously causing a lot of noise inside the company.
franceinfo: Is this protest justified?
François Gemenne: You could say that. In recent months, Shell has pulled out of wind projects in France and Ireland. And above all, the company plans to sell stakes in renewable energy projects in India. By 2023, Shell’s investments in renewables amounted to $3 billion. That is to say half as much as the marketing budget. And above all, well below investments in oil and gas extraction, which amount to $8 billion, according to the company’s annual report. For a company that claims to be a leader in the energy transition, that’s not great…
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Shell, leader in the energy transition, is this a joke?
In any case, that’s what a good number of Shell employees are saying, who have the impression of having been fooled, that the company’s display on the energy transition was greenwashing. And so several employees resigned, and shareholders also withdrew: for example, this is the case of the Church of England, which had more than ten billion pounds under management.
We talk about Shell, the British company, but we make exactly the same criticisms of Total Energies in France?
Quite. And the same for BP. A few years ago, Total changed its name and logo to become Total Energies, and thus mark its commitment to diversifying its activities, in the name of the energy transition. Except that in fact, Total is criticized for still clinging to oil, and for not investing enough in renewables.
“In 2023, Total Energies’ investments in renewables will amount to five billion dollars.”
François Gemennefranceinfo
This is a little more than Shell, and above all it is an amount which is slightly higher than investments in new oil and gas projects, which amount to 4.5 billion dollars. And among these new projects, some are obviously very controversial, like the EACOP oil pipeline, which crosses Uganda and Tanzania…
We must not be naive: can we really blame oil companies for investing in oil?
That’s the whole point, precisely! If we look at the global table of investments in 2023, investments in carbon-free energies have exceeded 1,700 billion dollars, it is a record, and an amount higher than investments in fossil fuels, a little above 1,000 billion. But the problem is first of all that investments in renewables are made mainly in industrialized countries, and not in the countries of the South, and also that investments in fossil fuels continue to increase! We invest in both fossils and renewables, and as a result renewables are added to fossils, and do not replace them.
“It’s as if we wanted to support both PSG and OM during the Classico…”
François Gemennefranceinfo
We saw it again at the MEDEF summer school, during a round table which brought together the CEO of Total Energies Patrick Pouyanné and the climatologist Jean Jouzel, where the first criticized the second for not being in the true life.
The whole contradiction is there: in a carbon-free economy, is there still a place for companies like Total Energies or Shell? Can companies that were built on the exploitation of oil transform and become leading companies in the energy transition? If we consider that these companies must disappear in a decarbonized economy, the risk is that they will cling to oil until the last drop.
“Shell’s story should give us optimism.”
François Gemennefranceinfo
Because Shell hasn’t always made oil: initially, Shell sold antiques, particularly collectible shells, hence the company’s name and logo. But that doesn’t mean Shell can ever go back to shellfish. And oil companies do not all see their future in the same way: some envisage, in the long term, a drop in demand for oil – this is the case of Shell or Total Energies – while others, like Exxon or Aramco, are counting on an increase that will last for a very long time.
But if we want to work on the energy transition, does it seem paradoxical to work for an oil group?
In any case, the Shell employees who resigned have the impression of having been cheated. Can you really grow a business from the inside? Today, more and more students refuse to work for companies that contribute heavily to climate change and the erosion of biodiversity. And we can imagine that recruitment difficulties would also push companies to question themselves and question themselves. So I understand that some students are tempted to desert, to branch out, or only want to work in regenerative companies, like Patagonia or Veja. But I tend to consider that the transition will largely take place in energy companies, and that this is where we must take the ecological fight… Be radical, go to Total!