Shell Quits Trade Group over Climate-Change Positions

by Steven Mufson (Washington Post) But the oil giant stayed in the American Petroleum Institute despite “some misalignment.” -- Citing differences over climate change, Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of an industry trade group called the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

Shell said that it was at odds with the refining and petrochemical group on the Paris climate agreement, carbon pricing, fuel mandates and the reduction of methane emissions.

Shell, in a review of its relationships with 19 trade groups, said it would link its executives’ pay to success in meeting the target of reducing the company’s carbon footprint by 2 to 3 percent over the next three years and by 20 percent by 2035. The linkage would affect up to 10 percent of the executive bonus pool, affecting about 150 people.

Shell also met on its own with EPA officials Feb. 14 last year to discuss how the EPA could change emissions regulations if it were to integrate state standards, according to another EPA docket summarizing the meeting.

But a person who attended the meeting said that the state standards chosen would have to be at least as stringent as existing EPA rules and that Shell, which highlighted California’s rules, was not trying to weaken Obama-era regulations for limiting emissions.

Shell has been among the most outspoken oil companies about the need to combat climate change, even as it continues its search for oil and natural gas for future production.

Shell said it used four markers in evaluating its trade group memberships: support for the Paris climate agreement, support for carbon taxes, policies encouraging low-carbon technologies and a continuing role for natural gas, which now makes up more than half of Shell’s business.

But even though Shell has supported a nationwide carbon tax of $40 a ton, it did not support the Washington ballot measure, saying it was not the right mechanism. The position was intensely debated within Shell, sources said. Shell has chosen to remain in the WSPA.

Stephen Brown, an energy industry strategist, called Shell’s withdrawal from AFPM “ridiculously self-serving.” He said that the Shell “just needed someone to throw overboard as a sacrifice to the left-of-center investor activist crowd and AFPM was the easiest victim.”