Post #62
November 2, 2022
Claire Bodanis
Having received a sharp lesson in planning for the worst, Claire appeals to our energy companies to do the same.
A couple of weeks ago, on a Friday evening, my son and I went off to my brother’s for half-term; leaving – or perhaps releasing – my author husband to spend as long as he liked beavering away in his sound-proofed study at the back of the house, unshackled by the rhythm of domestic life. Being in blissful solitude, he – fortunately as it turned out – felt no need to shut his bank-vault-like study door. Why fortunately? Well, we’d been gone barely four hours when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Calling out ‘Hello, are you back already?’ or some such, he waited a few minutes, called again, then made his way cautiously down the stairs.
Feeling a cold breeze, he checked that the front door was shut, then realised the draught was coming from the kitchen. Carefully opening the door to leave an escape route in case anyone was hiding inside, he discovered that someone had indeed been inside, but had clearly scarpered on hearing him call. The left-hand section of the rather elderly sash window facing the front garden had been jemmied open, and there was evidence of both a careful entrance and a hasty retreat. According to the police, who arrived admirably quickly and checked the entire house, cupboard by cupboard, from loft to cellar, the would-be thieves had probably watched us and our mountain of luggage piling into a taxi: and had no doubt gone off to plan their nefarious deed without waiting to see that David had, in fact, waved us off and gone back into the house. And, coming back under cover of darkness, they no doubt assumed the house to be empty, since, unlike me, David is not in the habit of forgetting to turn off the hall light.
The police also gave us a useful list of all the things that we should have done to protect against burglars. Replace the windows with more up-to-date, secure ones; install automatic lights across the whole of the front garden, rather than just the path to the door; and so on. All things we had, in fact, thought of doing when we moved in, but decided were a bit too expensive at the time and would no doubt get round to doing sometime in the future.
However, as I’m sure you would, we heeded this very stark warning and are currently working through a pile of quotes for new windows, security lights and so on. Catastrophe averted by sheer chance, phew.
I was minded of our lucky escape when reading in the FT last week, ‘World on track for up to 2.6C temperature rise by 2100, reports UN’. And a bit later in the paper, ‘Shell ready to “embrace” higher taxes as third-quarter profits double’. An admirable intention – but the article also noted that Shell will use those bumper earnings to increase the dividend by 15%, while using a further $4bn to buy back shares. Bringing its total share buy-back for the year (yes, just this year) to $18.5bn.
Why this brought our domestic ‘risk incident’ to mind was that David and I knew when we moved in a few years ago that we really ought to up our defences against burglars. But it seemed a lot of money for something that might not happen anyway. Two weeks ago, it very nearly did happen – and with this stark warning, we leapt to make the investment needed.
The world has been warned over and over again, for years now, of the catastrophes awaiting us if we don’t decarbonise; if we don’t move from a fossil-fuel-based energy system to a renewable one. And the warnings are getting starker. More floods, more wildfires, more unseasonably warm weather. Who is going to act?
Given the pitiful record of the governments of developed countries against the pledges they made in respect of the Paris Agreement, leaving it to our political leaders is not going to cut it – no doubt in part at least because many of them are beholden to the corporate cash that funds their election campaigns. But corporates can act – and in doing so, bring the legislators along with them. And who better to act to transform our energy system than those who really understand it, since they’ve been supplying energy to a growing world population in the form of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution?
If the oil majors chose to, they could put all that extra cash into speeding up the energy transition. These companies have made money from the world’s misfortune; why not invest it back for everyone’s benefit? And I do say invest, not give. After all, in investing in the transition, such companies will benefit themselves and their shareholders, as well as the rest of us, in the long run.
So while I applaud the willingness of Shell’s CEO to pay some of that extra cash back in taxes, which I hope will go to those least able to afford their rocketing energy bills, I am deeply disappointed in how the company has decided to spend the rest of it. The great advantage corporates have over governments in taking swift, decisive action, is that their leaders are not elected: so a relatively small number of individuals can – if they choose – have a disproportionately large effect for the good. Yes, it’s hard to go against the grain and invest so heavily in the future, not least when everyone is facing a cost-of-living crisis now. But it can be done, and, I would argue, it must be done.
Years ago, we had the privilege of working with Unilever when the then CEO Paul Polman made his bold promise to double the size of the business while halving its absolute environmental impact. It’s easy to forget now just how radical that was at the time, how it flew in the face of received wisdom. There’s much to argue about with regards what Unilever has or hasn’t achieved since, but there can be no disputing the fact that today, many of the things Polman promoted as part of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan are on every Board’s to-do list. What was radical then has become mainstream now.
And it’s just that kind of pioneering spirit, that focus on the long term, that we so urgently need in our corporate leaders now, and none more so than the leaders of the big energy companies. So as we approach COP27, I appeal to them: will you be today’s pioneering Paul Polman for your industry?