Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, in collaboration with several other Climate Justice Activist groups and the people of Niger Delta, have called on Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, to stop exploring fossil fuel in Nigeria and clean up areas affected by its operations in Niger Delta.

The groups made the call at a peoples' Annual General Meeting, AGM, held ahead of Shell's 2022 AGM in London and The Netherlands, during which they also urged Shell investors, particularly the Church of England, to withdraw its moral support to the company, until it was ready to revise its 2021 Energy Transition Strategy, and align with the Paris Agreement, which stipulates 'limiting increase in global temperature to 1.5 degrees celcius above pre- industrial level.'

The groups specifically urged participants at the London/ Netherland AGM to prevail on Shell Nigeria to comply with the Paris Agreement as they called on the Federal Government to re-commit itself to the said global agreement.

Addressing journalists at a rally held at Shell's Corporate Headquarters, Marina, Lagos, on Monday, the convener/Executive Director, ANEEJ, David Ugulor, lamented the impacts of Shell operations in the region over the years and the company's habit of non-compliance with regulations by global authorities, noting that it was high time people empathized with host communities of oil companies, particularly, in the Niger Delta.

He recalled how ANEEJ brought together 40 West African Non Governmental Organisations, NGOs, in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Revd. Justin Welby, asking the Church of England Pensions Board, and by extension other investors, to withdraw their support to Shell and how the letter was ignored.

He also noted how Shell later faced two major challenges in its energy transition strategy as well as the way the International Energy Agency directed that no new oil and gas fields should be approved for development after 2021, as a means of achieving the global target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

He explained that a Dutch court later ruled that Shell must cut its carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030, with immediate effect.

He accused Shell bosses of failing to feel accountable, and as such, didn't change the company's strategy, nor appealed the verdict and that the highly esteemed Church of England said nothing about the matter.

Vanguard News Nigeria