Environmental group Greenpeace on Tuesday, May 9, called on stockholders of Shell Pilipinas “to heed the call of climate impacted communities and stop being complicit to climate destruction” allegedly brought on by Shell’s fossil fuel operations.
The call came as Shell Pilipinas Corporation held its annual general stockholders’ meeting following 2022’s record high profits of its global parent company, Shell plc.
“Greenpeace is calling on Shell to immediately halt expansion and pay for reparations for losses and damages from climate impacts,” said Greenpeace campaigner Jefferson Chua in a statement.
“We are also calling its stockholders to stop supporting Shell’s expansion (and) call for the company’s alignment to the 1.5 commitment of the Paris Agreement,” added Chua.
Greenpeace sent copies of the Commission on Human Rights’ landmark National Inquiry on Climate Change (NICC) report to Shell Pilipinas Corporation’s top stockholders, to spotlight the message that climate impacts from fossil fuel operations causes human rights harms to communities.
Letters and the full report were sent to the offices of The Insular Life Assurance Company, LTD., Spathodea Campanulata Inc., Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation and Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company, among others as they began their meeting online.
Greenpeace said Shell Pilipinas’ Php4.08 billion in profits reflect the upward trend of fossil fuel earnings around the world.
Early this year, the biggest fossil fuel companies, including Shell, Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, and Chevron, announced historic profit records for 2022, with the fossil industry as a whole earning US$4 trillion for 2022.
Greenpeace said these companies should “acknowledge its disproportionate role in historical carbon emissions and commit to a just transition away from fossil fuels.”
The green activist group also called for a stop to all fossil fuel expansion and for the companies to pay up for the economic and non-economic loss and damages caused by climate impacts.
