Selçuk Balamir

Before we pose our question, we would like to explain why and how Shell Must Fall.

As long as you remain a company that is dedicated to maximising profits and short-term shareholder value, we know you will not keep fossil fuels in the ground. We know you won’t decommission you own infrastructure, nor provide a fair transition for workers, nor compensate damaged communities, nor repair the countless ecosystems that your operations have devoured.

So this is why Shell Must Fall.

But don’t worry, we are not gonna question you on any of these things today.

Instead, we are here to announce that our coalition is determined to make YOU, Royal Dutch Shell, FALL, by any legal, economic, or political means necessary. We hereby commit to canceling any future shareholders meetings and call upon allies, society and the government to dismantle you.

We will tax you, regulate you, split you up, socialise you, nationalise you, expropriate you, prosecute you, and bankrupt you. And while we make your dirty business inoperable, we will make sure to build a clean, affordable and just energy democracy.

So you see, today is a historic day! Because today you are witnessing the last ever Shell AGM! Because in the midst of a climate emergency the last thing that we need is the shareholders of a gas and oil giant carrying on business-as-usual.

So we say: May 2020 be the first year without a Shell AGM!

So we wanted to finish by saying that, perhaps you may look down on us, and you may believe that your empire is too big to fail, or too big to fall. But at some point, so did the monarchs and the aristocrats.

It is time, not for you to be on the right side of history, it is time for your business model to become history.

And so really the only question that we have for the board and also for the shareholders: Since there will be no more AGMs, how are you planning to spend your free day next year?