I'd like to thank you all again for your support at our last general meeting in December. Okay, thank you. I'd like to carry on with the meeting, if I may. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell. Shell. We will be stopped. We will be stopped. You are enemy to the people. You are enemy to the people. Shell will cease to exist. Shell will cease to exist. Shell lives on our backs. Shell lives on our backs. Shell is dead now. It is dead now. It's now. It's going to be dead. Shell is dead now. It's Shell is dead now. It's going to be dead. And our resistance- Our resistance. will be heard. will be heard. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell, you created, you knew the consequences. Shell, you created, you knew the consequences. Of burning fossil fuels. Of burning fossil fuels. Would destroy our environment. Would destroy our environment. Ruin living standards. Ruin living standards. Devastate food supplies. Devastate food supplies. Create social disasters. Create social disasters. That is exactly the future you have created. That is exactly the future you have created. Proud of yourselves? Proud of yourselves? Is this what you wanted? Is this what you wanted? Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell, by ignoring us. Shell, by ignoring us. You are not only ignoring ordinary people. You are not only ignoring ordinary people. You are ignoring climate world scientists and the scientific community. You are ignoring climate world scientists and the scientific community. You are also ignoring the United Nations. You are also ignoring the United Nations. You are also ignoring the international energy institutions. You are also ignoring the international energy institutions. You are ignoring desperate citizens all over the globe. You are ignoring desperate citizens all over the globe. Your profits. Your profits. Will only drown us that for so long. Will only drown us that for so long. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell, we know the good that the social license of fossil fuels. We will expose you. We know who you are. We know what you have done. know who you are. We know what you have done. know who you are. We know what you have done. We will remember. The Ogoni and the Niger Delta. Shell must fall. Shell. You are not. Shell. You are not. Shell. You are not. Shell. You are not. Where there is life, there. Where there's a street, you're worth it. Where worth it. Where there are waters, you cause nothing. What will have been the point? You are willfully leading us to disaster. You are a disgrace. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Can I suggest that was an interesting start to our annual general meeting. Yeah. I have listened to you for 15 minutes. Oh, really? Would you be- We will use everything possible to stop you. There's a spot for an EPA. We will sue you. We will hit your profits. We'll take every legal charge. To cancel you. Shell must fall. Can I say that again was an interesting start to our meeting. There are many other people who have come to this meeting to be part of our. Sir? Look, sir, can I ask you? We will bear our bodies in front of your machines. We will chain ourselves to your fossil fuel pipelines. We will pipelines. We will make it impossible for you to operate. To function. To exist. Your time is up. Shell must fall. I would like to say now that I have listened patiently. I have listened patiently for 10 minutes, and I ask you to stop what you're saying, now so that we can continue with the rest of the meeting, and I will invite you to come and ask questions at the right time. Shell must fall. I've asked you once politely on behalf of other members here if you would be prepared to be quiet for a while, so I could continue with the meeting. I do not want to get to this but if necessary, I will ask you to leave the meeting, so that we can continue with the rest of the annual general meeting. Shell must fall. If that's the last of it. I do not want to ask you to be removed from the meeting, but you will give me no alternative to do so if you do not become quiet soon. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Madam, I've listened to you and your colleagues many times. Leave your faith to this earth. You can list your bad deeds all day long. Our children will inherit a dead planet. Appeal to the shareholders, but you're tied to Shell. For the young people. There is no profit on a dead planet. Well, thank you for that. I would now like to continue with the meeting, if I may. I'd like to thank all of you again for your support at our last general meeting in December, which enabled us to simplify our structure. Now, before we move on. Shell must fall. As we meet today. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. must fall. Shell must fall. must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Please, can I ask you to be quiet? In time, I will answer your questions. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. One last time. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. fall. Shell must fall. Please can I continue with the meeting? Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. If you're not able to allow me to continue the meeting, I must now ask security to remove you from the meeting. I think now it has become too disruptive. Those of you who are not prepared to sit quietly should leave the meeting. I've listened to your protests, and I've listened to your views, and I now ask you either to sit down and be quiet or leave the meeting, or I'll ask you to be ushered to leave the meeting. You have Ukrainian blood on your hands. You have Ukrainian blood on your hands. blood on your hands. You have Ukrainian blood on your hands. Please. You are disrupting the order of the meeting, and I think you now need to leave. I cannot be allowed to continue. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. We are listening to you, and I will shortly invite discussion on Resolution 20. If you want to discuss Resolution 20. Shareholders have a moral duty to protect the planet. If you follow rules of asset management and reject relevant Resolution 20, how you vote will be your legacy to future generations. We will discuss. Will you too profit over your grandchildren's future? Well, we No. We will discuss all of that when we discuss Resolution 20. There is a place in the agenda for Resolution 20 when I will ask you to come to the lectern. The Secretary-General of the United Nations has urged you to vote it. All of you shareholders and proponents who are complicit. Wait. Please, if you would like to discuss Resolution 20, sit down and allow me to proceed with the meeting. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Please, will you- Shell must fall. We will discuss Resolution 20 at the place in the agenda, which is part of the order of meeting, which as a shareholder you will have read. Sir, we will hear you much better when we give you a microphone and we discuss Resolution 20. We will discuss Resolution 20 in a moment, and you can come and address yourself, and we will give you a microphone if you are prepared to comply with the order of the meeting. But we will hear you much more clearly if you address Resolution 20 at the right time. Look, this is. Please, sir, if this is the way you want to conduct yourself, can I ask you to leave the meeting? We will discuss Resolution 21 shortly if you allow us to continue with the meeting. We will discuss all of that shortly. We are in a global health emergency. Sir- Global health emergency. Air pollution is harming millions. You profit and you profit from that misery. You continue to cause suffering beyond comprehension. There are no dividends from pollution. There are no profits worth having. Our NHS is not here to sweep up your mess. Shell will be dismantled, and Shell must fall. We will come back again and again and again to make sure it happens. Whether you wake up, Sir Andrew, or not. We will not back down. We will never go away. Shell forever. It is clear that none of you are prepared to allow me to continue to conduct the meeting as proceeded. I now ask security to intervene with all those people who are stopping me running this meeting properly and have them leave. You are murderers. Shell must fall. Shell. You promised to cut ties with Russia. You bought cheap Russian oil. That nobody else will touch. They're asking whether they should let the police come in. Are the police here? Yeah, they can come in now, but they're very difficult to separate. You need to decide whether you want this to continue or whether you want the police to come in. The police. What do you think? Yeah, I see them now. What do you think? Okay. Okay. That must not be allowed to continue. Shell must fall. If you are not prepared to stop now, I have no option but to ask you to leave, and you will be requested to do so. I regret this deeply, but because you refuse to stop, I have now asked for the police to come and allow us to restore order as part of this annual general meeting. You will get a chance to express yourself properly if you were to stop. Now you have given me no alternative but to ask the police to come in and settle the meeting down so we can continue with proceedings. They're glued to each other. I saw that, yeah. The promises and commitments you made to keep the global temperature below 1.5 degrees are not only empty but dangerous, because they reassure the world it can burn a little better. Most of the public do not know, for example, that 19% of the world has oil relates to fossil fuel. As a Christian, I believe it is my duty to stand up to injustice. The decisions you are making here are resulting in the graves of school children. I think this can take 20 minutes before they get loud. Yeah, they're supposed to just sit there. Yeah. That's where. As oil is on everyone here. Who benefits any use of oil and gas? No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. No new oil and gas. Shell. You have no shame. How can you look yourself in the mirror? While people are being forced to choose. Between eating or food on the table. While your payments are clear. To your shareholders. Shell must fall. Shell must fall. Shout. Shout. It's a crime of just those. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. You put profit before the people. You put profit before the planet. You put profit before humanity. We will not forget. The decisions that you have all made. The actions that we are all taught. The power that you have is denied. The rights that you have bought. Which are facts. For a bloody long time. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Shame on your peers. Shame on everything you stand for. Three decades of absurdity. Three decades of failure. You have made a mess of this. You are choosing to be the side. Happy oil burns. Shell will fall. Shell. Frack the oil and all your dirty projects. Stop putting your profits above people's lives. Stop lying to us. You are leading us to one hell fire. Shell. Frack the oil and all your dirty projects. Stop putting your profits above people's lives. Stop lying to us. You are leading us to one hell fire. Shell. Frack the oil and all your dirty projects. Stop putting your profits above people's lives. Stop lying to us. You are leading us to one hell fire. Shell. Frack the oil and all your dirty projects. Stop putting your profits above people's lives. Stop lying to us. You are leading us to one hell fire. Shell. Frack the oil and all your dirty projects. Stop putting your profits above people's lives. Stop lying to us. You are leading us to one hell fire. You're allowed time to do it, just let it. I have come to the podium, and I wondered if you might give me a few words to say some things. I have listened very patiently to you for half an hour. You are upsetting a number of other shareholders who would like to conduct a proper meeting where your voices will also be heard. I do apologize to those shareholders for the delay, but we believe it will take about 20 or so minutes to clear the room of those people who are not prepared to allow the meeting to go ahead. We're pausing the meeting for that, but I would ask you to remain seated as shareholders, and those online, please stay on because we will then continue with the meeting after that. I wonder if it's possible for me to say a few words to update all shareholders who are present. Would you be prepared to give me a few minutes? You've asked a lot of questions, and I would dearly like to be able to debate them with you through the course of the normal AGM. Can I assume that you do not want to hear me speak? In which case I have to make other shareholders aware that many of these people have chosen to glue themselves to their seats and the team that needs to come from the police to remove them may take a few hours. We do not plan to adjourn. We are very keen to have the debate that democratic society would like us to have around many of the issues. Your board will remain, and we actually ask you as shareholders to stay with us in the room and online while we seek some help to manage this so that we have an opportunity for you and me to be able to say my side of the things we want to say. Well, thank you now, but look, I'm sure if I could hear you above the noise that you were making some good points, and I would love to debate that in the meeting. I'm now in a position that if I am going to do a better job as a chair, I have to bring greater order. What I would like to do is I would like to invite all shareholders who are not part of this protest to leave this room. We will take you to another room, give you lunch, and then this room will be cleared by the police so that we can continue the democratic process of debating what is the right way forward for Shell. All shareholder, I do apologize to you, but please, if you could leave the room, we will provide you with lunch in a room at the back, and then we'll clear this room so we can continue. I just need to make one announcement. In order to clear the room, the police have asked that all Shell staff now leave the room, and that will include the board. All of us should now leave the room. Apologize to those of you who've had to wait patiently for this meeting to start. We do respect the right of everyone to express their point of view, and we do welcome any engagement on our strategy and the energy transition, which is constructive. Of course, what we witnessed this morning was not quite that. Due to the disruption, we will move the procedural aspects of the meeting and post the speeches that Ben and I intended to give on our shareholder site before the end of today, and I do encourage you to read those. For those of you here or well, I guess on the phone without internet access, do contact shareholder services and they'll be happy to send you a copy by post. I think when I was interrupted the first time around, I was starting to thank you all again for your support at our last general meeting in- Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. You're not able to even meet the goals that you have set. You're causing the crisis that we see. Ex- You are Excuse me. We will have to ask you to be removed now, please, so that we can continue with the meeting. No, you. I'm sorry. You're interrupting the format of this meeting and would ask you to stop. It's my future. The IEA said that we can't have any. For your support of the company. Thank you. Well, maybe in a good way, but no. Okay. Well, if I may continue, I do thank you for your support at our last general meeting in December, which enabled us to simplify our structure. Let's get started. Again, well, I'm not sure I did say this. If you're participating online, please refer to the guide on the Lumi platform. If you're here in the room, see one of the ushers at the question points. When asking questions or making any comment, please state your name and the name of your organization you represent, if any. Look, Tjerk Huysinga is our Executive Vice President of Investor Relations, and he will support the question portion of the meeting, which is all of it now. He'll read out the questions that are submitted on the Lumi platform. Some of the questions might be moderated just to avoid any unnecessary repetition to make sure we have an orderly meeting. Tjerk will also balance the online questions with those on the phone line and from you here in the room. Please bear with us as we kind of bring them all together. You need a mic. I heard your earlier comment, but one of the reasons I come to AGMs is to hear Chairman and Chief Executive's speeches. Despite the disruption this morning, I would urge you to give them, because matters can arise from that which affect the questioners. Looking at the website afterwards is not, in my opinion, satisfactory. Let's see. Should we do them? We can. Do them on paper, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it really is up to the will of those in the meeting. We were trying to obviously make up for lost time. I, you know, we are prepared to give them, but we were really. I'm just interested if there's no, pardon? Show of hands maybe. Yeah. Is there any, you know, or any counter view? Would you like to hear us speak? I mean. Yes. I think I probably don't have them anymore on the teleprompter up there. Are you- I will just use paper, but that's fine. Do you wanna introduce the board or? Did we skip that bit as well? I do apologize. I think Linda's suggesting I should also formally introduce the board. Let me do that now while we get some of the speeches organized. I've got Catherine Hughes on my far right. Catherine is Chair of the safety. Sorry, just a minute. You lost me. Okay. All right. Look, I'm sure you can put up with this. I think I also need to confirm that we have a quorum present and now declare the annual general meeting formally open and suggest, with your permission, that the notice convening the meeting is taken as read. I would just add a little bit from some of this just to make clear that pursuant to the company's articles of association as contemplated by the notice of meeting, I hereby call for a poll to be taken on each resolution, and I also appoint the company's registrar as Equiniti to act as scrutineers. I hereby propose that each of the Resolutions 1 to 21, which are set out in full in the notice of meeting. Resolutions 1 to 16 and Resolution 20 are proposed as ordinary resolutions, and therefore, each requires a simple majority of the votes cast in favor in order to be passed. Resolutions 17 to 19 and Resolution 21 are proposed as special resolutions, and therefore, each of those resolutions resolutions requires a 75% majority of the votes cast in favor in order to be passed. I now declare the poll open, to allow sufficient time for other shareholders wanting to ask questions after we've finished speaking, please do keep your questions and comments short and to the point and relevant to the business of today's meeting. With those here in the room and for those choosing to ask a question via the teleconference facility, I do say if I believe your question or statement is particularly long, then I may ask you to bring it to a close. I do intend to, wherever possible, bring questions or comments of a similar nature together. Grouping questions in this way can in many cases avoid repetition and makes sure we get through as many issues as possible. I'm continuing to indulge your patience on a few things. I will of course continue now that we have. I appear to have a more orderly meeting to ensure that our proceedings are conducted in a proper and orderly manner and will do my utmost to assure that all shades of opinion are given a fair hearing. In other respects, too as I'm sure you will now respect our procedures and order of the meeting. For those watching on the Lumi platform, if you're still with us, a copy of the notice of the meeting can be found under the Documents tab on the screen. Those watching on the webcast, it can be found in the General Meeting section of our website. All of that said, now let me introduce our directors. Their biographies are provided with the notice of the meeting, and that was circulated to shareholders on April 20 and added to our website on the same date. Starting on my right, Ben van Beurden, our chief executive officer. Then we have Sinead Gorman, who's our new chief financial officer. Sinead joined the board in April, and she's succeeding Jessica Uhl, who resigned due to family circumstances which made relocating long-term to the U.K. unsustainable for her and her family. Sinead's been with Shell for some 22 years and has held several increasingly senior finance positions in Europe, North America and globally. On my left is our company secretary, Linda Coulter. Proceeding now with our directors. On Linda's left is Euleen Goh. Euleen's our deputy chair, and she's a senior independent non-executive director, as well as being a member of our nomination and succession committee and our remuneration committee. Now behind me, where I was, starting on the right is Catherine Hughes. She's chair of the Safety, Environment and Sustainability Committee, and Catherine's also a member of the Remuneration Committee. We have Dick Boer. Dick's a member of our Audit Committee and our Nomination and Succession Committee. Martina Hund-Mejean is also a member of our Audit Committee. We have directly behind me. He's chair of our Remuneration Committee and a member of our Safety, Environment and Sustainability Committee. Next to Neil is Jane Holl Lute. Subject to her reappointment at the end of the meeting, Jane will step down from her role in the Audit Committee and become a member of the Safety, Environment and Sustainability Committee. Moving on is Bram Schot. Bram's a member of the Safety, Environment and Sustainability Committee. Again, subject to his reappointment, Ben will then also become a member of our Remuneration Committee. Finally, we have Ann Godbehere. She's chair of our Audit Committee and a member of our Nomination and Succession Committee. Look, he's not present here today, but I'd also like to recognize Gerrit Zalm, who's watching the proceedings online, I think. As we announced in March, Gerrit is not seeking re-election today, following a serving us for more than nine distinguished years on the Board. Gerrit, on a personal basis from myself, we really will miss your insightful counsel and thank you for your invaluable contribution to the business. Now that is your Board, let's move on to the speeches. Well, thank you for doing it respectfully. I appreciate that. They're on the prompter. Okay. I'll take this just in case. Okay. As noted earlier, the atrocities continue in Ukraine. Just a minute. Hold on. We've recently announced our intention to withdraw from Russian oil and gas, and we did this with conviction. Two weeks ago, we agreed a deal to sell our retail and lubricants business in Russia, and we've stopped buying Russian crude and Russian liquefied natural gas on the spot markets. We will not renew any long-term contracts. We've also stopped spot purchases of cargoes of refined products; those directly exported from Russia. Shell is also working hard to secure the safety of our staff and contractors and to support relief efforts and take action when we need to. We continue to do our utmost to keep retail sites operating in Ukraine, where safe to do so, to keep supplies moving and all our teams in the region secure. As well as being a human tragedy, the war has led to rising energy prices and deep uncertainty about supplies. Simply put, this disruption in the global energy markets means a further painful increase in the cost of living. That is why affordable, secure and reliable energy cannot be taken for granted. Global supply must be protected and managed through international cooperation involving governments. If these are enormous challenges that we, as Shell and others, must act on today, the world also faces the huge and longer-term challenge, we all agree with this, of climate change, and we must all take action with this, or on this with equal urgency. For Shell, this means we are continuing to accelerate our strategy to become a net zero emissions energy business by 2050, and Ben will talk about this in more detail in his speech. It means achieving short-term targets for cutting the intensity of our carbon emissions, as we've done for 2021. It means working towards our interim targets for 2024 and 2030. These are demanding targets, of course, but we're determined to meet them. No ifs, no buts. Finally, it means building on strong financial results like those we announced just a few weeks ago for the first quarter of this year. Shell must play its part in both supplying the energy of today and helping to build the low carbon energy system of tomorrow. For this, we want your support. In fact, I would urge everyone here today, everyone listening online or reading this later, to see the energy transition as it should be, an opportunity. It's also a great challenge. It's huge in complexity, and it is one that the teams in Shell, our people, work on every day. To make the most of the opportunity of the energy transition, we're transforming Shell. We're using our powerful, trusted brand to help us build market share in new low carbon products and services. It is the integrated nature, though, of our businesses that allows us to move fast to generate value. I saw this very much in action recently on the Shell trading floor in Houston. There I saw our teams operating second by second, looking at how we keep the energy flowing, while considering all the time the impact of the carbon emissions of our sales and purchases, and in their way making their own contribution to our targets, and as well as getting that energy to where it needs to be across countries, continents and oceans. I want to thank all our different teams around the world for their incredible work in continuing to supply energy to all corners of the world, even in these most difficult times or other difficult times I'm sure to come. We have the scale, the expertise, and the experience to make the most of the opportunity that is the energy transition. Today I want to give you a few specific examples of the kind of change taking place already, big and small, tangible change. I'll start with small and local. Just a short drive from here, perhaps in an electric vehicle, where you will find our first EV-only charging hub in London. This is the first time that we have swapped all our petrol and diesel pumps at a site for an ultra-rapid charge point. Apparently, local residents say the site is quieter, cleaner, and better for house prices. Well, I can't vouch for that, but I can say that our hub on Fulham Road in southwest London is part of a much larger change, a larger change. At the end of 2021, we operated almost 90,000 charge points globally. By 2025, we're aiming for more than 500,000. In less than 10 years, by 2030, we're aiming for 2.5 million, and that will include 100,000 public charge points here in the U.K. That's a huge change that is taking place all around us. Now let me take you to the other side of the world, to China, to our project in Hebei Province, which offers a glimpse of how we're expanding our hydrogen network. Through our joint venture there, we have built a 20 MW electrolyzer that will produce hydrogen from renewable energy. As we grow, we're using Shell's integrated businesses to connect the different parts of the hydrogen system. This means going all the way from offshore wind to power the electrolyzers that produce the hydrogen, just as we are in China, to then using hydrogen in our energy and chemicals parks and eventually supplying it through our retail network to power trucks and buses. To give you a sense of scale overall, we now have 30 MW of total electrolyzer capacity, and according to the statistics from the International Energy Agency, that is, on Shell's account, 10% of the global capacity of electrolyzers that were installed in 2020. My final example takes us back to Europe, to a large plot of land in our energy and chemicals park in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. From 2024, we expect this site to play a key role in meeting Europe's growing demand for low-carbon fuels. This facility aims to produce 820,000 tons of biofuels a year. When this site starts up, sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF for short, could make up more than half the capacity. Globally by 2025, we aim to make about 2 million tons of SAF a year. By 2030, we aim for SAF to make up at least 10% of our global aviation fuel sales. These three examples are glimpses of what a low-carbon energy system will look like. They're just some, a few examples, very few examples of what we're doing as an energy supplier. For Shell's transformation to happen at the speed and scale that we want it to, we must match our role as a supplier of energy with the role of others, as the consumers of energy. Supply and demand both have to change, and our role is to work with customers to make change possible, and we have made this an essential part of Shell's strategy. We're helping customers to identify and adopt low and zero-carbon alternatives to the energy products that they have used for decades. So far, we've formed more than 50 collaborations with key customers. For instance, with Daimler, we're working on how to increase the market for hydrogen trucks in Europe. With Hyundai, we're establishing a hydrogen refueling network in California. And with Rolls-Royce, we're looking at how planes can be powered 100% by SAF, sustainable aviation fuel. When you consider that we span 160 markets, serve 32 million people a day at 46,000 branded retail sites, and work with more than 1 million business customers, you see the great potential we have to grasp the opportunity of the changing energy system. Today, we're asking for your support on what we've achieved so far. The Follow This resolution, Resolution 21, rejects and, in fact, imposes our strategy, and Ben will also talk more about this too. I urge you to vote against it and in favor of Resolution 20. I urge you to acknowledge the progress that we have made and are making in our energy transition strategy in the space of a year. We're moving fast, as I said we would. We are working with others to make significant change. We are rising to the challenge, and we're making the most of the energy transition. Thank you. Thank you. I'll now ask Ben to add his remarks. Ben. You have the remote. Okay. Well, thank you very much Andrew, and thank you very much to our shareholders for joining us today. I hope many of you are still watching from home or from another place. Quite a few shareholders still in this room, and I again also would like to add my appreciation to your patience and stay with us. Thank you, sir, for suggesting that we would do the speeches. That's actually a very good idea. Now, a year ago on our AGM, I told you about how excited I was about the future of this company. Because then we had just presented our new strategy, which we called Powering Progress. We had just presented our targets to accelerate the transition of our business to a net zero emissions energy business by 2050. Then, of course, the world has changed dramatically since then. Andrew already explained it. The war in the Ukraine, well, it still appalls me every day, as I'm sure it also appalls you. Added to this humanitarian disaster that has disrupted and destroyed so many lives, people across the world, of course, also face other urgent challenges. Some parts of the world are still struggling very much with COVID, for instance. We're also facing an urgent challenge to deal with climate change, of course, very much also the theme of today. Many around the world are also experiencing a very difficult cost of living crisis. This cost of living crisis is, of course, affecting life. If you ask me what the role of a company like us, an energy company, should be in helping to solve this crisis, I think the answer is a sustainable long-term transformation of the energy system. Because I believe we need policies that ensure that energy companies can deliver the oil and gas where it's urgently needed today to rebalance supply and demand, which is a bit disrupted today, but simultaneously help replace these fossil fuels quickly, but responsibly with low and zero carbon energy. If we want to prevent energy disruptions in the future, we need stable policies that stimulate investment in both the energy of today and the energy of the future. Now, with all this uncertainty and all the change that is currently going on in the world, some of you may wonder whether our Powering Progress strategy, the strategy that is going to transform Shell into a net zero energy business by 2050, whether that strategy is still the right one. You can ask yourself, can our strategy withstand the fuel shortages for customers, the inflation, the extremely volatile commodity prices that we are witnessing, and can it cut emissions, but at the same time continue to create shareholder value? Can it supply reliable energy to places where it is needed most? Fair questions, but my answer to all of them is yes. Our strategy is still the right one. Precisely because it is designed to cope with change. It is designed to continuously deliver value for shareholders and society while taking the opportunities to grow and become an even more competitive and an even more resilient company. Now this means that we are focusing even more than we did on our customers. It means retraining thousands of staff and skills that will be needed for the energy transition, and it means radically transforming the company over the next decades. Now let me give you some examples what this really means in practice. To start, last year, we completed one of the most effective reorganizations in our history, and we are now operating in a smarter, more customer-focused way with fewer people. We also simplified our share structure, and we moved Shell's headquarters, including our tax residence, from the Netherlands to here to the U.K. These changes have given the company much more flexibility. That again helps us to deliver value to you, our shareholders. Now, the company must of course create value for shareholders, so I'm happy to see our financial performance and the recent quarters have been very, very strong consistently. Let's face it, we cannot just only use these metrics to judge the investment case in our company. Shell must fall. Shell. fall. Shell. I'm glued on. Let me restart with the paragraph where I got interrupted. Apart from creating shareholder value, we must also respect nature. We do this by recognizing the growing urgency and the growing need for action to protect biodiversity or to protect water quality and to use resources more efficiently. We must also power lives by supplying, first of all, the energy to those that need it most, and by being a diverse and an inclusive organization. In 2021, last year, for example, 47% of all the graduates that we hired were women. On our board, the percentage is 50%. Of all our employees and senior leadership, around 30% are women, including senior leadership. We are making progress, but then I'll be the first one to admit that we need to do more, and we can do more. Now another way to judge our investment case is by our readiness for the future, because the world is changing, and as more people use low and zero carbon energy, this is also where the customers of the energy sector will be in the future. As you've heard, this means that for Shell, the energy transition is a great opportunity as long as we change as well. Our portfolio is changing. We recently announced the acquisition of Sprng Energy, which is one of India's leading renewable power platforms, and we won bids for offshore wind in Scotland that will produce enough renewable electricity to power every Scottish household twice over. In fact, once the Sprng acquisition is completed, we will have about 50 GW of renewable generation capacity in operation or under construction and potentially future projects. Which should be enough to more than power all the households in this entire country in the U.K. We're also building a comprehensive network of charging points for electric cars, Andrew mentioned it. During last year only, we grew our worldwide network by about 50%. 50% more in one year. We're making good progress towards our expected average 1%-2% reduction in oil production to 2030. That's 1%-2% a year. Now, for some, we're not moving fast enough to get out of hydrocarbons, but I believe we are. We have set climate targets that we firmly believe are aligned with the more ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which is to limit the increase in the average global temperature to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Last month, we published a report on how we are delivering on these targets, and today you get the opportunity to vote on our progress, which I think really has been very strong. Let's start to recap it a little bit. By the end of 2021, we reduced the absolute emissions from our own operations and then the energy that we use to run these operations by 18%. That is compared to 2016. And it's on a net basis. Our target is to achieve a 50% reduction, halving it compared to 2016 by 2030. Now, cutting these absolute emissions from our operations is important, but we have another target that is perhaps even more crucial, not just for us, but for the world, because it includes the emissions from our customers. This is the target to bring down our net carbon intensity. By the end of last year, we had reduced the net carbon intensity of all the energy products that we sell by 2.5%. That's also compared to 2016. That means that we have met the target that we set to cut between 2% and 3%. Now, you may say 2%-3%, well, that doesn't sound like a lot but let me give you some context. Last year, the world economy experienced a very intensive recovery with a 6% growth in global GDP and at the same time, a 6% increase in CO2 emissions. There was no reduction whatsoever in the world's carbon intensity. The 2.5% reduction that we achieved in carbon intensity is indeed significant. Then of course, this reduction target will quickly become much more larger. We have set a target for 9%-12% carbon intensity reduction by 2024, and we tied these targets to our executive pay of the top 16,500 people in Shell. Now, like I said, this carbon intensity is just not crucial for us, it is also important for the world. I can illustrate this with a simple example. Shell sells a lot of aviation fuel. You may see the Shell trucks at airports if you fly to another destination. Now, imagine that we just stop selling this fuel. Imagine that we decided to close down our kerosene plants and our refineries, we stop supplying to our customers and leave this sector altogether. Now, that would bring down our absolute emissions from our aviation business to zero. Would it help? Would it really help the world to come closer to achieving net zero emissions? Would, as a result of our departure from this sector, fewer planes depart from airports? I don't think so. Because if we supplied less kerosene, it wouldn't mean that people would fly less. People are not that loyal to our brand. They'd simply buy from another company, and the total demand for fossil fuels wouldn't change at all. Now, imagine another scenario, and this is the scenario where we continue to sell aviation fuel, but more and more the fuel that we sell is sustainable aviation fuel. We help our customers change the type of energy they use and then lower the CO2 emissions that they produce. This is what we are doing, and I believe this is the best solution for both our shareholders but also for society. Because together with our customers in aviation, we are helping to change demand for energy to lower carbon. We are working on ways to help increasing the use of low carbon fuels, and we are decreasing the emissions of this sector. Now, in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, as was said before by Andrew, we took a final investment decision last year to build an 820,000-ton-a-year biofuels facility, and this will be among the largest biofuel facilities in Europe producing these sustainable aviation fuels from waste and from certified sustainable vegetable oils. This sustainable aviation fuel will not replace all the kerosene in the world in the next few years, but it will help the sector move away from kerosene. It will start to help lower emissions from aviation as a whole, and it will bring down the carbon intensity of the energy products that we sell. That is a difference. That's the difference between helping reduce the intensity of emissions by gradually improving the energy use of an entire sector or just letting go of our customers in this sector altogether and let somebody else deal with the problem. It's the difference in my mind between walking away from a problem or stepping up to be part of the solution. That's what we intend to do, be part of the solution. We are stepping up. We are working with all the sectors that use a lot of energy and that need help from energy companies like us with expertise and experience to find a path to net zero emissions. Aviation is just one of a good set of examples of these sectors. In the same way, we are working together with our customers in shipping, we are working with our customers in heavy duty road transport, we are working with our customers in industry and the production of chemicals, et cetera, et cetera. We are investing in the technologies that will help these sectors find their own path to net zero emissions. These paths can include, beyond biofuels that I just mentioned, wind and solar power of course, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, offsetting mechanisms by planting trees, preserving nature, et cetera. In this way, apart from bringing down our own emissions, we also help our customers to adapt. That brings me back to our strategy, Powering Progress. It was designed to respond to changing circumstances without losing sight of targets and goals. Our strategy factors in different ways in which energy makes a difference, and in doing so, our strategy helps us to deliver a secure supply of reliable and sustainable energy across the world. That's a tall order, but we will not shy away from it. No company can do this in isolation, so we will continue to work with our customers of course, with governments, and with you, our shareholders, because we need your support for this. Now last year in the AGM, you actually overwhelmingly supported our Powering Progress strategy and our plans to transform Shell into this net zero energy emission. Net-zero emissions energy business, both purposefully and profitably. Today, the vote is about the progress that we have made in the last 12 months since we launched that strategy. I think this progress has been strong. It has been strong especially if you consider that according to the International Energy Agency in Paris, almost all activities in the global economy produced more carbon emissions in 2021 compared to 2020. Just try to think of a single sector that succeeded in reducing emissions. Power generation did not. Industry as a whole did not reduce emissions. Transportation did not reduce emissions. Emissions from all these sectors went up in 2021. Our progress in the energy transition is ahead of what we see in most sectors using energy. What's more, we achieved this progress profitably. I think our strategy is working, and therefore I ask you shareholders to vote in support of the progress that we have made in the last 12 months and not to vote for the resolution of Follow This. The Follow This resolution calls for targets that actually would conflict with the Shell strategy, so that so many of you agreed with. In fact, this resolution could be harmful to our strategy that you approved last year. The Follow This resolution proposes targets that go much further than even the most progressive pathways to net zero in our sector, for instance the pathways that have been proposed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the pathways of the International Energy Agency. What's more, these IPCC and IEA pathways include actions by all parts of society. Follow This suggests that we should reach the targets on our own, which is unrealistic for Shell as a single company to achieve. Most significantly, the Follow This resolution focuses solely on changing the supply of energy. This approach would mean, as I said earlier on, that we have to abandon our customers and shrink our business, and that's fundamentally different to the energy transition strategy that we have just explained, and hopefully you understand from the example that I've given about Shell's role in helping aviation reduce emissions. We believe that a dramatic change in demand for energy is just as critical as the required changes to supply, and that's needed for the energy transition to really take place. This means working together again with government, society, and crucially working together with our customers. That's why our strategy is customer focused. In short, the Follow This resolution is unrealistic. It wouldn't help reduce the world's carbon emissions, and it is not in the best interest of you, our shareholders. Today, we ask you to vote in support of the progress that we have made in the last 12 months and not to vote for a change in our strategy by pursuing misguided targets for our company as suggested by Follow This. Because I believe we have made significant progress. We are reinforcing Shell to deliver a secure supply of energy in the places where it is needed most. We are changing into a net zero emissions business by 2050, and we are strengthening Shell as a business for today and a business for the future. Thank you very much. Back to you, Chair. Thank you, Ben. We've now finally come to the part of the meeting where you have the opportunity to ask questions. A little bit of repetition, you may have seen in the notice of the meeting that most of the resolutions are of a mainly routine nature for a listed PLC, with the exception of the two climate-related resolutions which both I and Ben have just made reference to. Just to remind you, the first of these is Resolution 20, which is proposed by the board and represents an advisory vote on Shell's progress against our energy transition strategy. I think you've heard that your directors strongly believe that Shell's energy transition strategy is in the best interest of our shareholders as a whole, and as a whole of wider society, as we've explained. Equally, the board and management also believe it's important for all shareholders to have a vehicle to express their views on whether our strategy and progress against it is reasonable in the current environment. The advisory vote resolution is designed to be such a vehicle. For clarity, it doesn't shield or abdicate the board or management's legal obligation under the Companies Act 2006, nor does it ask shareholders to take responsibility for formally approving or objecting to Shell's energy transition strategy. That legal responsibility continues to remain with the board and the executive committee led by Ben. The other climate-related resolution is Resolution 21, and that is a special resolution, which has been requisitioned by a group of shareholders represented by the organization Follow This. Your board believes that Shell's more comprehensive strategy and actions to support society in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, which have been summarized in the energy strategy, make this resolution redundant. Further, the directors believe that Resolution 21, if adopted, could be harmful to what we think is a successful energy transition strategy and against good governance. So, we unanimously recommend that shareholders vote against this resolution. We'll shortly hear, I think first from Mark van Baal, who will tell you more about this resolution. To ensure orderly discussions, I'm gonna put this up front. For all questions or comments of a general or open nature, including those about climate change or the energy transition, and all questions or comments about our strategy regarding you know including those about Resolution 20 and our energy transition strategy, we'll then take all the questions then, and again, those with the remaining resolutions. Again, just a reminder to keep your questions to the point and short, preferably no longer than one to two minutes, so we can get through as many as possible. If you're asking a question through the teleconference facility, please give your name, and if you represent an organization, the name of that organization when asking a question or making a comment. Maybe I could, as I've said, just ask Mark van Baal to make a short statement about your resolution. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Van Beurden, directors, and fellow shareholders, an organization that has so many qualities, so much expertise, so much capital, has to be able to reinvent itself. Mr. Van Beurden, I hope you recognize this quote as your own quote in 2014 when you just took the helm of this company. After we read this quote, we thought, "This would be the man who could drive the energy transition." In the seven years that followed, we tried to help you with a shareholder mandate to reinvent Shell. On the way, we supported and we welcomed every single step you took, specifically accepting responsibility for Scope 3. Reluctantly, but you accepted responsibility for Scope 3. You are the first oil major to do so. Today, the Follow This climate resolution will come to vote for the sixth time. For the sixth time, the board advises shareholders to vote against the climate resolutions, against this climate resolution. Since 2017, we consistently support this company, Shell, to set no more and no less. Let me emphasize this to shareholders. Mr. Van Beurden misconstrued our resolution. We ask no more nor less than Paris-consistent emissions reduction targets. In 2017, you called this Paris-consistent emission reduction targets unreasonable. In 2018 to 2021, you called them unnecessary. In 2022, a new argument came into the table, unrealistic. It's the exact same resolution, dear shareholders. After seven years, we have to conclude that Shell has not reinvented itself. Emissions have not been down dramatically, and more important, the investments, 90% or more of the investments still go to fossil fuels and not to renewables. In this decade, and that's very important, Shell has no plans to substantially shift investments to decrease emissions. Nowhere near what is needed to radically put the climate, realistically put the Paris goals within reach. According to the benchmark of the Climate Action 100+ The world's largest investors alliance, Shell has no Paris consistent emission reduction targets, and even more important, no Paris consistent capital expenditure plans for this decade. A Dutch court confirmed this, ordered you to decrease emissions. The IEA told you to invest in more renewables. The IPCC, contrary to what Mr. Van Beurden just said, also says emissions have to be down by around 40% this decade. How much you wanna contribute to that's up to you, but at this moment you still wanna increase emissions. Today, shareholders in Shell will show what future they prefer. A world of increasing oil and gas production and devastating climate change, or a world that curbs emissions in order to achieve the goal of the Paris climate agreement. They will do so by voting for or against climate Resolution 21 that requests, again, no more no less than emission reductions in line with the Paris Accord. The key question on the AGMs of big oil in 2022 indeed is, will investors give in to the narrative from oil companies that the energy crisis created by the Ukraine war overrides the climate crisis? We think not. We thank the investors in advance who voted for curbing emissions. They are the true change agents of this industry. An industry that has proven to be change averse for decades, but can make or break the Paris Accord. Together with these shareholders, we must convince more shareholders that big oil will only change course when they vote as well. Luckily, nine out of the ten largest investors in the Netherlands, these shareholders, nine out of the ten largest investors in the Netherlands have pre-declared their vote for the Follow This resolution and against Shell's climate plan because they simply think it's not good enough to reach the goal of the Paris climate agreement. I think investors who vote against Paris consistent emission reduction targets should realize that they are complicit in big oil's refusal to seriously cut emissions this decade. Not in 2050, but this decade. At the AGM, Mr. Van Beurden, a year ago, to offer shareholders transparency about your strategy, we asked you a very simple question. That year the question was, your answer was, "It's a guess." I hope you can answer that question today to your shareholders. Your shareholders need to know where your absolute emissions will be in 2030. That's my question for today. What reduction in net absolute emissions will Shell achieve by 2030? I hope you can answer that question today. Thank you, Mr. van Baal. I'd like to ask the CEO to respond before we invite any more questions or comments. Ben. Yeah. Thank you very much, Mr. van Baal, for coming to London and for also being patient through the morning. Thank you for reminding me of my statement back in 2014. It sounded quite familiar when you started mentioning it. I believe actually that we have reinvented the company quite considerably already. I must say I take a little bit of issue of you calling us still an oil company, but I guess that is probably something that we cannot agree on. We think of ourselves an energy company rather. To your points and the concerns that you have, we believe that our strategy and the targets that we've set are actually consistent with the Paris Agreement. We have explained how that works in the strategy last year, the document also this year. To be perfectly honest, to put it pretty simple, for the shareholders here, what you're asking for, which a 40% reduction, is two times Paris. Let's be clear. We are Paris compliant. We're being asked to do two times Paris. Of course, there will be a 40% reduction in the entire economy, et cetera, but it's usually not over 10 years. Europe talks about 55% reduction over 40 years. The IEA talks about a 20% reduction over 20 years. If you just look at the sectors that we serve, it's about a 20% reduction that is going to be needed to be Paris consistent. That is what we do. You talk about the investment levels that we put in. Well, as our investment levels have gone down quite consistently and considerably and are now more or less in line with the net zero emissions scenarios of the IEA. We used to invest more than $13 billion in oil per year. We now do less than $8 billion. The IEA says, as a world, we should go from $700 billion a year to $500 billion a year. The IEA never said zero. That is misconstrued. To say that we have no plans, I think would be a mischaracterization. You also say we still increase emissions. Well, no, we have reduced emissions. I just mentioned it, 18%. Don't think I can get away by just saying something and not be serious about it. Everything that we say in meetings like this, everything that we file in an annual report or in a document is being scrutinized by regulators. We have no option to just say something because it sounds convenient. It is, it has to be true. It also says in that, by the way, that our absolute Scope 3 emissions have come down by 16%. We don't set a target for it, by the way, but it's just a fact. Everybody who says, "you just do more," is just quoting from a set of data that I simply do not recognize. Like I also don't recognize that we would be peddling a narrative that the Ukraine now overrides Paris. It's exactly the opposite to what I say. Actually, Ukraine reinforces the need to go faster. That's exactly what we are doing. We have not set a target for absolute emissions simply because we believe an intensity target is better. Think of it this way. Do you want to be judged on how fast you shrink? Your legacy business? Or do you also want to be judged on how fast we grow a new business? If you want to just have a shrinking target, then absolute emissions will do the job. If you want to have a replacement target, then you have to work with an intensity. The intensity target that we have set for 2030, and that's the only commitment I make to you, Mr. van Baal, is at least 20%, which is fully in line with Paris for the sector that we serve. I will commit to that again, and we are well on track to meeting it. Thank you very much for coming. Yeah, thank you so much for your answer. It's very clear that you don't wanna commit to absolute emission reductions. I think your shareholders, your responsible shareholders, are aware that the world has to halve their emissions by 2030, approximately 40%, maybe 30%. That doesn't matter. Paris consistency matters. Your shareholders really wanna know what your contribution will be in absolute terms to achieve the Paris Accord. Dear shareholders, I wanna advise you have a CEO here who says a resolution that asks for Paris-consistent emissions is unrealistic. In that way, he says the Paris Climate Agreement is not realistic. That's something shareholders who have a long-term vision, who know that climate change will devastate all their assets, should take in mind when they cast their vote next year. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. van Baal. I mean, just to reinforce, we do think that Paris is realistic, and we do think that we are consistent with it. We have offered up absolute targets for our own Scope 1 and 2 emissions. We just believe it's more effective for the world to have carbon intensity emissions for our Scope 3. Anyway, we now can open it more widely to questions. Chair? We will have three ways of asking questions, as Mr. Chairman has just said. We'll have questions on the audio line. We will call them via the operator. We will have questions here, which are written via our Lumi platform, and we'll have questions which are in the room. I now invite someone, and it is, I think it's Sylvia from van Waveren, for the next question here from the room, and then I will go online, and I will come back to you, sir, on number two. Sylvia, go ahead. Yes, thank you. My name is Sylvia van Waveren, and I'm from Robeco, and today I speak on behalf of a group of institutional investors. Including Robeco, that is PGGM, MN, Van Lanschot Kempen, NN IP, Bedrijfstakpensioenfonds voor de Bouwnijverheid, and SPW. To start with, I would like to thank management and the board for our ongoing discussions on topics like strategy, remuneration, and climate change. It is of crucial importance to have this open dialogue, especially in these challenging times of ever-increasing climate risk and international military conflicts. In the last couple of years, we have attended Shell's AGM with the same basic message, that Shell has a critical role to play in mitigating climate change, and that it is of the utmost importance that the company clearly discloses how it aims to achieve the energy transition strategy by showing plans, actions, targets, and progress that minimizes the risk to shareholders. We recognize that the company has shown leadership by being one of the first companies in the sector with the Say on Climate vote last year. The current progress report is beneficial in helping us to understand the steps the company is taking throughout its transition. That is clearly illustrated with the fact that Shell has set climate targets that cover carbon emissions of Scope 1, 2, and 3 with short, medium, and long-term reduction periods, with the end goal of achieving net zero by 2050. Furthermore, we are encouraged by the fact that the Shell executives are incentivized to reduce these emissions, as this is incorporated in your annual bonus scorecard as well as in the long-term incentive plan. At the same time, however, we should be mindful that we have moved another year down the line and that meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement requires far greater immediate actions. The Shell progress report and its strategy, in our opinion, has several items that trigger our concern and should be improved, and I name here three. First of all, except for the net zero target for 2050, which has recently been strengthened, Shell has not set absolute targets for its Scope 3 emissions in the medium term, unlike some of your peers. As such, there are no guarantees that the action that Shell is taking in investing in low carbon technologies will help to reduce climate-related financial risks for the company. Secondly, the net carbon intensity metric and target setting is the guiding metric for Shell's strategy. At that, and at this point, there is sadly not a single framework for independent verification of that. There are recognized tool, for example, those based on methodologies from TPI, that show us that although Shell's long-term net zero targets align with the Paris goals, there is greater uncertainty whether this is the case for the short- and medium-term targets. Thirdly, we are concerned about the risk of over-investment in fossil fuel assets. It's critical for the company to have clear disclosures on how investment decisions are made around high carbon assets, including the assumption used within your investment decision-making and how these are consistent with limiting warming to well below two degrees and the ambition of achieving one and a half degrees Celsius. Today, here at this AGM, the investors I represent have made their voting decisions, each on their own merit. Voting, by definition, is binary. You are either for or against, and the reality is much more complex, and actions require more balance, nuance, and granularity. In that spirit, we would like to share with you our suggestions and some questions on how we think the company could enhance its strategy in order to be considered aligned with the goal of the Paris Agreement. We believe it is our duty to provide you with this feedback, and we hope we can count on you and on your openness as you have shown us in the past. Here are my three questions. We agree with you that a sole focus on changing the supply of energy is not enough and is only a one-sided approach which will not lead to the desired energy transition. A dramatic change in demand for energy is just as critical as the required change to supply, as you already indicated. We see in your progress report that you are actively acting on this front, and you provide a couple of examples which we highly appreciate. This is my question. When do you think, and how would you be able to formulate quantitative progress for the full scope of your actions towards changing the demand side? Secondly, the current midterm target of 20% CO2 intensity reduction does not align, we believe, with the TPI, the IEA global CO2 reduction targets of around 40%, and we have heard your comments already on that. What would it mean for Shell to report on the main differences of your current strategy compared to what it would be against those 40% that, for example, the IEA pictures? Thirdly, there has been a court case in the Netherlands last year. You have responded to that ruling, and saying your Scope 1 and 2 absolute emission reduction target of 50% and the action you are taking to deliver position the company well to meeting the obligations of the district court. However, it is unclear whether and how Shell's Scope 3 emission reduction targets are aligned with the so-called significant best effort obligation ordered by the district court. How are you seeking the necessary assurance that you are in compliance, and what are your legal counsels advising you? Furthermore, could the company expand on how it plans to manage broader climate-related litigation risks? I will end here now. I would appreciate your responses to the above raised questions, suggestions, and comments. Before I hand over to you, Mr. Chairman, I would like to repeat and indicate to you that we very much value the engagement results we jointly achieved so far, and as I expect, we will achieve again going forward. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Sylvia. Look, I'll probably pass some of the more detailed parts of the questions to Ben. But I would observe, obviously, along with Mr. van Baal, you know, that we clearly have a difference of agreement as to where to place the emphasis on Scope 3, where we believe the best way to help the world, as well as Shell, and Shell to play a part, is to be based on carbon intensity targets rather than absolute emissions at this stage. We agree with you that short and medium-term targets matter, and that's why we've introduced more recently and been very clear about our absolute emissions targets we have on Scope 1 and 2. I welcome your acknowledgment of the importance of changing demand and we're working on it. I don't know if there's much more that you can add, Ben, but I would reinforce that from our analysis, you know, and particularly when you take account of our medium-term target for 2035, we are strongly compliant with Paris, and I don't recognize your statement as being thus. Ben, anything for me to add? Well, first of all, Sylvia, thank you very much for coming, and thank you also for recognizing the progress that we have made ever since I have been in discussion with you, for the last eight and a half years. You're very right to acknowledge that indeed more needs to be done on demand, and it needs to be acknowledged, and that I hope you will recognize as also our strategy. Our strategy is actually to reduce the demand for carbon-intensive energy and replace it with carbon, low-carbon or no-carbon energy, which basically means working with our customers and trying to, of course, make money in that transition that our customers also need to do. Now, on the IEA, I know there's a lot of discussion out there about, well, the IEA has a scenario that brings us to net zero. Why don't you follow that? There's, I think, two misconceptions about it. First of all, the IEA scenario does not prescribe a 40 or 50 or 45% reduction this decade for customers of our company. It talks about a reduction in the entire economy, and most of that reduction actually comes from switching coal-fired power stations to renewables. If you just look at the transportation sector and the industrial sector, the IEA scenario actually looks at something like 20%-25% reduction over 20 years. Here we are constantly talking about the remainder of this decade. Can't you do the same for the remainder of this decade? That's actually half of the time already gone. Secondly, it is a subset of the economy that we happen to serve. We don't have coal-fired power stations that we can switch off. We can only switch planes to fly on sustainable aviation fuels. We can encourage customers to come with their electric cars rather than their petrol cars. That actually is a different reduction scenario than the overall reduction scenario of the IEA. That's point number one. Point number two is the IEA scenario, which was made at the request of the British government for in the lead up to the Glasgow COP, is a goal-seek scenario. It's how could you mathematically get there? It didn't sort of say, "Well, this is how it's likely going to happen," or "This is what could happen", or whatever. It actually works out how you're going to get to net zero in a mathematical way, not necessarily in a sociological way. Yeah. If you now look back, the scenario came out a year ago. Yeah. A year into this scenario, the world is 2.5 years behind. We've managed to get a 2.5-year sort of backlog a year into this scenario. This is not my number. This is the number of the IEA. This scenario is interesting, and I think it's really good to, as a society, to just say, "Well, look at what we should have been doing, and this is what we actually have done." Therefore, it's a good mirror to have, but it's not necessarily some sort of business plan or a target that you can adhere to. That's why we are focusing on the strategy that we have and that we are using the parameters that we have. The only thing that actually the IEA scenario has been delivered on is the amount of investment in oil and gas. The amount of investment in oil and gas in the world has indeed reduced in line with the IEA net zero scenario. Partly, that is why we are looking at $115 oil today. Yeah. Now, can we do more to track against it? Yeah, I think we should, Sylvia. I think we should in our next year's report, we should bring this out more clearly. Where we are going, what others are doing. We should give also more assurance that we are working on the sector strategies and the progress that we are making. We should demonstrate, which we are doing by the way, but we should demonstrate more explicitly that indeed we are making significant best efforts to help our customers reduce their emissions. I think we are doing that. I think we are complying with the court case, but I agree with you, we need to make that more transparent for you as a shareholder as well. Okay. We're gonna take one more from the Yeah. We go to question point number two. Okay. If you can stand up, and then I'm gonna go online, and then I'll come to you at question point number one. You go first. We have quite a few questions online as well, and I wanna make sure that those questions are asked. Go ahead, sir. John Farmer, Chairman, Shareholder. There's a substantive question on performance, but first, quick constructive questions on your annual report and the AGM. Thank you first for your chairman and chief executive presentations. Fully welcome. As to the annual report, I speak as one who reads many with optician-attested excellent eyesight, but suggest respectfully there's room for improvement in yours. The contents page, white on red, is poorly legible, and I, for one, tend to refer back to that when I'm going through the text. Your gray print is just about manageable, could be blacker, and it sometimes gets a bit small, but the red subheadings are quite a good contrast. Importantly, particularly with the trend to reading online, would you print across the page and not in columns to stave wearisome scrolling? Finally, Chairman, on the annual report, I suggest respectfully it's far too long. The aim should be to communicate succinctly and relevantly to your interested shareholders. World War II Prime Minister Winston Churchill had a habit of requesting briefings on no more than half a page. That is a far cry from your 350. Could you please shorten and be more incisive and concise and relevant? Right. As to the AGM, Chairman, it's perhaps laboring the point. First a constructive comment. Welcomed is your extrication from Royal Dutch Shell and your return to Shell plc and your return to London because video link to The Hague was imperfect and a bit wearisome. Can you please learn from this morning and plan for dissent? In my opinion, those dissenters should have been extricated far more quickly, and I suggest an analogy with BAE Systems plc, which is an arms supplier has had demonstrations in its time, although I haven't been to its distant Leatherhead AGM. On one occasion, protesters plastic handcuffed themselves to blocks of six seats, which were amenable to being carried out. I suggest by analogy that you could have carried out the protesters stuck to the seats and dealt with them later. There's a constructive set of points there. Would you like to respond before I go on to my performance question? I would mainly say thank you for your suggestions. I mean, of course, we always look to improve and I take your point that sometimes documents are designed by younger people on average than are meant to read them. I have the same issue. We'll take them all on board as well as those for the AGM. Thank you for them. Thank you. A more substantive question on performance, Chairman. You say on Page 12 of the annual report that you have an aim of being a compelling investment case. While you are paying yourselves lavishly as a board, performance is lackluster in terms of total shareholder return. I think I looked up that you have paid executive directors in the last year some EUR 12 million. Is that right? Non-executives, another EUR 2.6 million. Quite a sum. What have shareholders got for it? A total shareholder returns ten-year of a paltry 20%. Harking back to my point about the annual report, Chairman, would you in future reports, please quantify the inflections of the graph, which this here is on Page 182, so we can actually read it. That graph does show that you're well below peer group. Were I being rude, I could suggest that the board is money for old rope. Would you and your colleagues, perhaps the Remuneration Committee Chairman, and maybe even the Finance Director, and perhaps the Chief Executive, give some thoughts on what you're doing or propose doing or will do in future to align board remuneration with what shareholders actually get? Because fundamentally, you are here to perform, and I just round off by quoting the Chartered Institute of Marketing definition of marketing, the management process responsible for the identification, anticipation, and satisfaction of customer requirements profitably, and I stress the profitably. Shareholders are rewarded by total shareholder return. Frankly, Chairman, over 10 years, we've had very little of it from your board. What will you do in future to improve? Okay. Well, there's a lot to take on board there. I mean, of course, I would have to say on behalf of the board that we absolutely want to stand for improved shareholder returns. We share in many ways your frustration at not being able to return more and are working hard on the agenda that you were describing. I think in terms of the relationship between executive remuneration and the shareholder experience, I think it's closer than you're suggesting. I mean, most of the executives are substantial shareholders themselves and are required to have very large shareholdings before they can sell, I think up to about 900% of his base pay in the case of the chief executive. In that sense, we build the alignment. About 35% of the bonus is based on financial performance, the things that you would recognize. We do allow allocations for other things like operational performance. There is an increasing slug for what will probably be the predominant discussion of this meeting of our what you might call our performance in the energy transition. That is seen by many stakeholders as significant and an important way of rewarding shareholders. You have our commitment as a board and as management to continue to lift performance. I hope you've enjoyed some of the more recent results. You know, I mean, you know, just in the last quarter, you know, we were able to announce earnings over $9 billion in the quarter and an EBITDA of $19 billion in the quarter. And an aggressive continuation, which is a return to shareholders of our buyback program. We have been continually increasing the underlying dividend, the underlying progressive dividend as well. But I take it all on board, and we will work for larger returns as we improve the running of the business. We've already suggested on the current track that we expect our cash returns to shareholders in the second half of the year to be in excess of our upper part of the range and our financial framework of 30% of cash from operations. Yes. Could I provocatively suggest, Chairman, that the performance metrics such as you've alluded to have not actually succeeded in the last 10 years to any great extent. Secondly, as to your board being large shareholders, you're paying them so much they can afford to be. Well, no, our board are not large shareholders. I mean, we have small shareholdings to protect our independence. They can't be too large, but our executives are large shareholders. All right. Well, I will just as a final remark say that your presentations this morning are probably welcome to the intelligent converted, and urge you to maintain the momentum in moving the emphasis away from fossil fuels to clean energy. Thank you. Yeah, you can take that for granted. Thank you very much for your constructive comments. Thank you. We'll now take a question which has been posted online. It's a question from Mary Ann Pritchard. Her question is as follows: The IEA states governments, companies, and investors all need to do much more and fast in order to bring more affordable and clean energy into the system. Why is Shell not doing much more? First part of the question. The IEA notes that there can be no new oil, gas, or coal development if the world is to reach net zero by 2050. Why is Shell ignoring this? These are the two questions, Mr. Chair. Well, I think quite a few of the issues around the IEA, Ben has already addressed in answers to other questions. I think I'm right, Ben, correct me if I'm wrong, but the IEA has not said no to all new oil. It's just said no to new provinces. We've, as Shell, committed that from 2025, we will not go into any new frontiers, but we will continue to develop the hydrocarbon provinces that we're operating in, albeit at a slow rate of capital spend as Ben has described. If I might point out that no oils are the same and as we're going forward, we have to find the kind of oils whose carbon cost of production is low. Now there is such a thing as a low carbon hydrocarbon value chain, and they're the ones that Shell strives to build, and we do that by carefully adding to some of our existing developments. We're not ignoring this, we're very active. I hope actually from both Ben and my speeches and our commitment that I think we communicated recently that we expect about half of our investment in new activities by 2025 to be into the low carbon and zero carbon space dedicated that we're very serious about this. I don't know if there's anything you want to add. No? Okay. Okay. Let's go to question point number one. Thank you. Ma'am. Jenny Edwards. I'm an individual shareholder, and I've been a shareholder for some time, having inherited my shares. Last time I was with you all was in 2019 in The Hague, so I'd like to say hello to people who were there, and nice to see you again, and welcome to slightly weird start to your time in London. Also welcome those of you who are new faces. Welcome to Andrew. I'm here both as a shareholder and of course, I'm retired. I'm very keen on my dividends, but I'm also a human being and I'm deeply concerned about the future facing us. I heard from the IPCC in their mitigation report that they're calling for a revolution in energy generation and supply. What I've heard here, though it's welcome steps in the right direction, is not a revolution. I look to all of you who have responsibility on the board or as executives to move up to that energy revolution. The planet is not negotiating with us. The planet has a timetable which actually is racing ahead all the time of our predictions for it. We have to move faster and with greater determination. I have to say, I'm not convinced by your change in investment plans. You may say everything else is unrealistic, but the plan is not negotiating with us. Now, I have been alerted by the Union of Concerned Scientists to one particular aspect of what's happening in Shell. It actually came from your climate lobbying report last month, where you found that there was misalignment in some of your lobbying investment and your aspirations. Specifically, two examples were the American Petroleum Institute, which is trying to use the war in Ukraine as an excuse for stalling or rolling back on climate change aspirations and the transition, and also the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is lobbying against climate policies. But you're still in there saying you're working from inside. I think that strategy has been tried for a long time, and it's time for Shell to cut that connection, and either find lobbying bodies that properly are aligned with what we know is needed, what the UN and what the IPCC is telling us, or to establish something to actually lead that revolution that we're being called upon to do. I say that with goodwill. I intend to stay with Shell, and I intend to be here every year to raise similar issues, but also to say you're not anywhere near there at the moment. You must move faster. Okay. We must move faster because I accept I carry a very tiny part of the responsibility for what this company does as a shareholder. Well, I guess its context is everything and, you know, I've been in this industry for 40 years. It feels like a revolution to me, but I accept your take on the system as well. We are definitely increasing the pace and we're always dreaming of greater possibilities of change. Look, we've all read the latest IPCC report, and we agree with their call to action and we believe we're following it, but we're more than happy to be held to task by you. I think the issue about membership of trade associations is a thorny one. Shell has a process where they review, I think annually, and correct me if I've got this wrong, our membership of a wide range of associations, and we are looking for exactly what you're concerned about, that they may be lobbying counter to the views that we on Shell hold and that you hold about what is necessary in the transition. That has led to us resigning from some of those associations. We will continue to repeat that. The API and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are more complex. This will sound a bit like a sort of lame excuse, but of course, they do many more things than talk about climate. The API provides an awful lot of standards and is a great place for sharing how we can make the industry safer. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of course, is seriously concerned about a number of issues that matter to Shell, for example, trading conditions and our commitment to free trade. It's not as easy to just say, "Well, we like all these bits, but we don't like the climate bits, and therefore we're gonna resign and leave all of that." It is something we keep under review. I understand the tension. I'm not sure I would characterize these organizations as trying to use the Ukraine war as a reason to reject climate change. There may be some of the members are like that, but I don't think that's a consensus. Now, I don't go to the API. I think Ben does, or maybe not. I think probably it's our U.S. President. I don't know if there's anything you want to add, Ben. Perhaps just to reinforce. Indeed, we have left some of these associations where we felt that the differences became just too large, too irreconcilable, and started to overshadow the good sides of being part of such an association. We will continuously evaluate that on a year-by-year basis. What we will not do is do something that is optically interesting but actually has no substance. In the years that we have been in the API, in the last few years, where we have indeed threatened with leaving and we have worked very hard from the inside to change their policy positions, it is remarkable how much they have changed. I have no issue here publicly to say that we take credit for it and credit to Gretchen Watkins, who is representing us there. There may come a time, as with some of the others, where we just say, "Well, you know, now we don't see any progress anymore. Let's just go." I just want to make one more point, if I may, Mrs. Edwards, on your investment levels and the revolutionary nature of it. A lot of people talk about Paris-compliant investment. Well, there is no such thing. If you just look at the total amount of money we spent on capital investment and our operating costs, we spent $55 billion a year on stuff, projects, making energy, and supplying it to people. About a third of that spend is actually on low and no carbon this year. By 2025, we think it will be 50%. Sometimes you hear people just quote historical numbers at, you know, 1% or 4% or whatever else. It is actually, by the middle of this decade, half of our expenditures will go on low and no carbon energy. There is no definition of whether that's enough or not enough or whatever else, but it's not insubstantial. It's not as if we are ignoring this. Indeed, if you look at historical numbers, they're much lower, and that's why I would agree with Chairman that it is actually, it feels to me also like quite a significant change. I can see there's been progress since 2019, but not what I would have hoped to have seen, and certainly don't do anything for the optics that isn't serious. I think Shell should be absolutely working with those who are saying we must go further and faster because the planet won't wait for us. Correct. Thank you. We agree. Thank you. I think we'll go now to question point number two, and then I'll go online again because there are quite a few questions online. Go ahead. Thank you very much. My name is Sophie Marjanac, here today representing ClientEarth. In our view, in order to maintain confidence of the company's shareholders, the board must demonstrate that the energy transition strategy supports and secures the long-term commercial and financial sustainability of the company. Yet, as recognized by our fellow shareholders today, we believe that there are serious flaws and discrepancies in the board's current approach which undermine this objective. Three key points. The first already raised by Follow This, the absence of short and medium-term absolute emission reduction targets, despite the judgment of the Dutch Supreme Court that the board make a contribution of 45% by 2030. Secondly, the scale of the intensity targets, which we believe to be too low, and the risk of the company missing these targets. Finally, despite your previous comment, the continued investment in the so-called legacy business with 14 projects in the pipeline that are inconsistent with the IEA's net zero scenario. For these reasons, we are unable to support the energy transition strategy and consider it appropriate to hold the board to account on the company's behalf by way of our anticipated shareholder litigation in the English High Court. We encourage our fellow investors to support that claim. We do not ask the board to comment on that claim in this forum. Rather, our question relates to the long-term net zero goal. Really, in your most recent disclosures, you found that there was a significant risk that should society not move fast enough, that Shell would not meet that so-called 2050 target to become a low carbon energy business. My question is, does the board accept that this goal is unrealistic, potentially implausible, and amounts to a vague hope given the stated inconsistencies with net zero targets that have been pointed out by others here today? Okay, well, I think you were good enough to mention that because this to some extent is in the courts, there's a limit to what we would be prepared to comment on this forum. I think in all of your three points, we've tried to address them in answers to other questions anyway. I think on our long-term net zero target, you know, we've always said that it needs to be something that we do together, but we are determined to be a very strong partner and driver in that change. Thanks very much. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Chair, I'll go to a question online here then. I've got a question here from Christian Donovan. It's a relatively long question, so bear with me. Question is in two parts. The shareholder asks seeks reassurance of the board that it wants nothing to do with identity politics, quotas, and the like of the leftist toxic agenda. Appointments across our organization will be down entirely to merit in a competitive process. Those selected should be those that are considered to bring the best value to our business. Our marketing and our communications will not be biased towards any particular agenda, bias or representation of certain races over others, which is common in the MSM nowadays. The board should not give in to bullying from those who seek to disrupt our business. While clean energy is a desirable objective, we cannot sacrifice the lives of our customers and shareholders. Many shareholders being people who live ordinarily in communities on the basis of bullying and harassment from those who seek to disrupt our business. Respectful dialogue and an exchange of ideas is to be encouraged, bullying is not. I'm sorry, it was a statement and not necessarily a question. I don't recognize Shell in this. That would be my first comment. I mean, I think my second comment would be that we make all our appointments based on merit. We are actually very proud that we have a gender diverse board and of the statistics that I think Ben covered in his speech about the strong pipeline of diversity that we have feeding the senior management of Shell to in many ways replicate what you see in front of you in the board. As I said earlier, I've worked in this industry or related industry for nearly 40 years, and I certainly find that diverse and inclusive teams outperform those which aren't. I have hard evidence to support me on this and just a sense of feeling about it. It's something we do because it's the right thing to do, but in many cases, it's actually very commercially sensible to do it, and it's entirely based on merit. I think that really. Yeah covers everything. Yeah. Let's go to question point number one again now, and then we'll go to two, and then we'll go online again. Thank you, ma'am. My name's Grace Smith, and I'm a longstanding shareholder, not aligned to any particular group. During the long pause this morning, I was chatting and reminded of Mark Moody-Stuart, who was one of the first to set this company on a path towards greater sustainability. I used to enjoy coming to the meetings and look forward to hearing the vision for the future and innovation. I go from this meeting feeling that I've heard justifications and explanations, and our CEO has referred to strategies that can cope with change and responding to change. My question, my first question is: Is that all we can aspire to? We've heard about helping to reduce emissions. We've heard about looking to find a path to solutions. Surely a company of this size and capacity ought to be leading and spearheading change. My question is: Where is our vision to lead towards a better future? Secondly, moving from lofty aims to practicalities. Now that we are Shell plc, please could we have an AGM at a reasonable time at Greenwich Mean Time because some of your shareholders are disabled and have great difficulty traveling towards central London during rush hour. Okay. I will take note of that. I will also, as mentioned earlier, acknowledge that we're now doing all this online and trying to reach a global audience as well. Point well made on your second point, Ms. Smith. I've clearly done a bad job. I actually think that, and I know Mark Moody-Stuart quite well, that the Shell of Mark Moody-Stuart is alive and kicking. This is a highly innovative company. That is driving hard to reduce emissions. Since becoming chair, I've had the opportunity to visit quite a number of locations, and two of my trips have been to our major centers of research and development, where we are driving hard to really unlock some of the technologies that will allow all of us to move to a lower carbon future. I'll watch our language, but I feel that I have failed, and I've slightly misrepresented, and I have to apologize to Mark when I see him next. Okay. I'm just looking for the time when I don't have to come here or go online to hear about what Shell is doing, 'cause I've already heard it out there because it's so exciting. Okay, well said. Okay. Let's go to question point number two. Sir. Thank you. Paul Ruschenburg, a private investor who's gained his shares by inheritance like our previous speaker. First of all, I'd like to thank you for making this AGM accessible to people in London, having had to miss several because I've not been in a position to travel to The Hague for about ten o'clock in The Hague. I'd also like to thank you, Sir Andrew, and commend you for the way you handled the events of this morning. They wasn't easy, and we've all survived very well. I'm afraid this question slightly echoes the previous one. You've referred to the IPCC report a number of times, in which it talked about the need for immediate reductions in emissions of GHGs. I'm not going to bore everyone by repeating it. The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, responded by stating that investing in new, and note that word new, not where it is already, not the continuous, new fossil fuel infrastructure is moral and economic madness. What is the opinion of the board of the UN Secretary-General's comment? Bearing in mind also yesterday's resignation of Caroline Dennett, will Shell commit to cease investment in new fossil fuel infrastructure as soon as possible, if not immediately, and certainly before 2025? Or will they continue on the path that the UN Secretary-General has described as moral and economic madness, even if only for a couple of years? I'm trying to think. No. Yeah. I mean, I've tried to give an answer to that, and I think so has Ben in other our answers to other questions. We probably do respectfully disagree in a small way with the U.N. Secretary-General, that we think that a zero- carbon world will still require some hydrocarbons in particular for things which are not to be burned, like lubricants and chemicals, for example, and that hydrocarbon production will be necessary to sustain that. We also believe that until a proper solution is found for the ability to store renewable energy, we are going to be dependent on gas, which is the cleanest of all hydrocarbons. In our twin duty of guaranteeing security of supply and also driving to lower and lower carbon, we do have to balance and phase the withdrawal of hydrocarbons, or people will go short and may be less aligned to what we're trying to do as a consequence. We do introduce nuance, but directionally we're in the same place. We are, as Ben has described, reducing our investment in hydrocarbons, significantly growing our investment in low carbon and zero carbon sources. We feel this will offer the fairest solution, if I could put it that way, for the whole world, because for people in less advantaged countries or people a lot poorer than ourselves, to create a shortage or a high cost of energy prematurely through not getting this transition right could be very bad indeed. In spirit, I'm with them, but in detail, I think we see things a little more nuanced in Shell. Don't doubt our commitment to go with the world to net zero by 2050 and a very low world, much lower carbon future in a sustainable and just way. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I'll do one online now, and then we'll go to question point number one. The question online here is from Robert James Michael Barrett, and his question is: Can we have more assurances of Shell's transition to renewable energy sources and supply, please? Relatively short question. Why don't you try that, Ben? Yeah, happy to do so. Thank you very much, Mr. Barrett. I think absolutely. We are investing more and more in more renewable sources, more renewable supply chains for cleaner energy. Of course, as I said also in the speech, we try to at the same time create a market for these products as well. I hear a lot of times people just say, "Why don't you just build more wind farms?" Not that we're not building wind farms, we're doing a lot in terms of building new wind farms, but wind farms will not help make flying carbon neutral. We need something else for that. We need to make a product that doesn't really exist at scale yet. We will not have electric flying, we will not have electric shipping, we will not have electric heavy duty road transport, and many of the industrial energy uses are not going to be electric for a long time to come as well. For those, we need to do different types of supply chains. Some of it is hydrogen, some of it is bio, and you will exactly see us focus on those supply chains as well. We cannot just build these supply chains and they will come. We have to, at the same time, develop the market for that. Therefore, a customer back strategy is still very much relevant. I cannot go to British Airways and say, "Buy this beautiful, sustainable aviation fuel. It's only three times as expensive as kerosene, but at least your customers feel good about flying on it." It doesn't work like that. It will only work if there are mandates from governments compelling airlines to use sustainable aviation fuels, and therefore the price point is being created rather than innovated towards. Yes, we absolutely have this commitment to go as fast as we can, and we will probably go ahead of society on this. We are putting investments in for which markets do not yet exist. We are contemplating very significant investments of hydrogen plants at the moment, for which there are zero customers. But I can't put $10 billion to work in the hope that over time, this investment will come good. You will not approve if we would do that. It is going to be supply and sources, absolutely, but pulled by demand, and that is where the focus of our strategy is also this. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. We'll go to question point number one now. Thank you very much. I am a shareholder, longstanding shareholder. Margaret Thatcher made that possible for people like us. Oil spills are still a major problem in Nigeria. You know Nigeria very well. You've been running the oil company since 1958. In fact, two weeks ago was in the world news that 100 people died trying to vandalize one of your pipelines. You know, what does it take for Shell to get round with the Nigerian government and really tackle this problem? Because I have mentioned this problem on so many occasions in the past, and nothing's been done. I don't know whether you're afraid of the Nigerian government. After all, the American president fines you straight away for any spills in the Mississippi. They do that, you know? Nigerian leader, he has very little power to do anything, you know. You have more power than he has. Please try and explain to us what you intend to do to try and minimize this problem. 100 people have just lost their lives trying to make a living out of vandalizing your pipelines, you know? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, look, that was a terrible incident. I can assure you, I'm gonna ask Ben to talk about some of the detail, but in the short time that I've been on the board, we spent a lot of time at the board and in the committees discussing the challenges of Nigeria, which are quite extreme in some places in order to avoid things like that and to continue to operate the business. It has our attention, and I'm very satisfied that we do spend a lot of time talking with them, the government and their representatives, but it's still difficult. Ben. Yeah. Thank you very much. I remember indeed, we have talked about this subject many times before. It is a subject that I also personally engage with, including Muhammadu Buhari, when he visits or when I visit Nigeria. It's of course, not a problem of the last few years. This problem had been with us since the beginning of this century at scale. There's always been sabotage, but the large sabotage, illegal theft and then illegal refining, et cetera, has been really growing very significantly. In the end has resulted in a situation where there is almost complete lawlessness at times in the Delta, which is very difficult for a company like us to operate in. We cannot be a force unto ourselves. We cannot even have security people. We have to rely on the protection from government if we have to clean up spills and everything else. Even to investigate whether a spill is actually happening is quite a risky and significant undertaking for which we have to have military protection. If you just look at the percentage of spills, more than 90% of the spills being caused are caused by vandalism. Sometimes very sadly, vandalism to create a spill so that a claim can be made, which of course is a tragic consideration for everybody affected. What we have been resorting to other than increased vigilance and shutting down pipelines as soon as we have a detection of a spill or loss of pressure in it, et cetera, what we have also started doing is to just put restrictive facilities on. We have at the moment, 187 of our wellheads have cages on them with CCTV, so we can monitor vandalism in progress, and we can notify the authorities that there is vandalism in progress. But it is a very difficult environment, sir, to operate in, where in the end the responsibility for the rule of law is not to a company like us to enforce. I do think that the Nigerian- That's money as well, you know? Well, the amount of money being Profit going away, you know. It's been spilled away. That's very true. Take it seriously. The percentages of crude being indeed stolen or unfortunately also leaking to the environment or being illegally refined and sold on is not insignificant. It is actually a significant hit economically for the country as well. I must regretfully say that some of these challenges are beyond what is sort of controllable by a company like us. We do clean up spills, though. Every spill that is being caused, whether it is an operational leak, which unfortunately also happens, sir. Even if it is a sabotage leak, we clean it up. Last year, we remediated 187 sites where leaks have occurred. The very large leaks that have been there for some time, like Bodo and other leaks in Ogoniland, we continue to make progress with the cleanup there as well. We take responsibility for those leaks that have been caused by operational circumstances, and even if they have been caused by sabotage, we take responsibility for it. I think in the end, unfortunately, we have to concede that this is sort of beyond what we can do, and therefore, we have decided to also review our operations onshore in Nigeria. We are deciding, as we have been doing for almost a decade now, to gradually and maybe now quite quickly, remove ourselves from onshore oil because we believe this is an impossible position to manage. Bad news. I agree. It's sad. Okay. Thanks anyway. Okay. I will go now to a question online, and I'll come to question point number two. There's a question online from Steven Derek Pullen. I note that Shell are prioritizing biofuels from ethanol in a partnership with Raízen and others for SAF production. But isn't this a false economy when such offsetting will inevitably take up more land and should be used to grow food, not to facilitate businesses as usual for aviation? The aim to increase sales from SAF biofuel production to 2 million tons by 2025 will increase land use problems. Where is all this land going to come from? Isn't the only way to reduce aviation emissions to reduce aviation rather than offsetting using land or facilitating growing food for planes rather than for people? Further, are Shell not offsetting investments in nature-based solution projects and traders in associated carbon credits contrary to the corporate responsibility statement, the Powering Progress strategy, and achieving true energy transition? This is resulting in buying time for a delay rather than urgent and planetary essential transition. Okay. Well, if you're listening online, Mr. Pullen, I mean, thank you for your question. I mean, the points you raise are absolutely spot on. You know, we really have to get this right, and we certainly don't want to be in a position of substituting fuel for food, as you're talking about. I mean, the reality is that we very much want to work with waste and with bioproducts that grow in places where food couldn't grow. We're scrupulous in trying to make this the case in many of the things that we're looking at. The same goes, I think, with the opportunity for nature-based solutions where, you know, we want to be very clear that they are genuine credits and they have genuinely captured carbon in a permanent way. I think we've pioneered the way of doing that. There's nothing in this that is seeking to avoid working on other forms of decarbonization, the move towards more renewable energy, the hydrogen economy, potentially also the use of carbon capture and storage. They're working together and I think if we're gonna get there and be really determined at getting to net zero as quickly as we can, we need to make sure we fully utilize biological sources as opposed to crude oil sources for a number of things that we might do, make very good use of things like nature-based solutions to offset while we can. We may need this forever because we may want to continue taking carbon out of the atmosphere even when we get to the point of not adding new additional carbon. This is something that we will do with great care and we understand the issues that you raise, and we certainly don't use this as an excuse for not doing other things that we can do that don't involve nature. The other thing about this is, of course, if we get it right, we make other contributions to things like biodiversity, which, you know, we would welcome as well as, of course, the carbon reduction that they can bring. Okay. Thank you. We'll go to question point number 2, and then I'll go online, and then I'll come to you on question point number 1. Andy Cawthra, shareholder. Thank you very much for your speeches that we heard, and particularly your insights into the supply and demand side and the risks of substitution from Mr. Van Beurden, the risks of substitution on the supply side. My question is quite simply, what scope do you see to increase the speed to net zero low and low carbon emissions within Shell? Okay. Well, maybe Ben. I mean. It's of course the question that we are contemplating all the time. Let me break it into two. First of all, we're looking at net zero of our own emissions. Just again, to put some numbers in the room, our own emissions back in 2016, if you look at our facilities and the energy that we use in those facilities, is about 80 million tons. We are well on our way to halving that by 2030 to 40 million tons. That needs to come down, of course, to zero by 2050 as well. If we can go faster, we will go faster. Scope 3 emissions, so the emissions of you as hopefully one of our customers and other customers around the world are of course much larger. It's all the petrol and diesel and everything else we sell. That's more like 1,500 million tons per year. We could halve that quite quickly. We could just get rid of half of our customers, and then that would be fine. Of course, we can't work with those customers anymore to help them reduce their own emissions. The pace with which we work with our customers to bring them to net zero on their Scope 1 and 2 is ultimately going to be the pace with which we will reduce our Scope 3 emissions. Now, what we have said we would do, sir, is not to just say, "Well, we'll hang back, and if our customers are ready, we'll be there to supply them the energy they need." As a matter of fact, we have made it our strategy to work with our customers and say, "We hear that you are interested in reducing your own emissions. How can we help you?" And we are continuously finding new ways. We are even finding also those customers who say, "You know what? Energy is not necessarily a big deal for me in my, in the cost of goods or whatever else. I just want to go to net zero. I don't mind paying more." And we use those customers to actually help us boost the innovation in deploying new supply chains. We're actually, if you look to some of the results, slide packs that we bring out, we have now just last year, we signed 50 agreements with large companies. Yeah, Amazons, Microsofts, Googles, but also DHL and others to just find new ways to bring sustainable fuels into the mix, new power into the mix to really go faster. It is these types of activities, because again, to a question by another shareholder earlier on, for me to just build the facilities in the hope that customers at some point in time will have use for the products is not going to be a sustainable strategy either. I can tell you, we are going as fast as we can, even to the point that we have said we will remove this in step with society language. Because first of all, the reality is we are going much faster than society. Secondly, really our strategy is to, where we can, help drive society to a net zero outcome. That's exactly what we are doing. As I said, the 2.5% may not sound like a lot, but if society does exactly zero, it is progress that is faster than society. We will continue to accelerate, and I think that we can get to zero even if society is lagging behind. Thank you. Could I suggest a supplement then? There's also a strategy for acceleration. It's a fair question. I thought that was what it was, but clearly not enough. We will have a look at it and see how we can point out where acceleration is possible, what we are doing, and how well we are succeeding at it. I think that's an excellent point. I have one more question online, and then I'll go to question point number one. This is another question from Robert James Michael Barrett. How are you planning your strategy while you take into account volatile oil and gas, wholesale and retail prices? I mean, when you work in the commodities business, you actually have a strategy that anticipates and expects volatile input costs and output costs. It's the nature of the business. Actually, the people who are the most successful ones are the ones who can manage that in the most effective way. I think it's the whole basis really of how Shell plans. We assume that things are going to be volatile, and we build balance sheets and we have capital allocation frameworks that anticipate that we are going to see reasonable volatility in both top line and indeed the bottom line of this company. I think nothing more I can say to that, really. Thank you. Let's go to question point number one. Hello, my name is Gloria Brown, and I'm a shareholder. I'd like to say that the Bible, it's very difficult to navigate. The typeface, very small, at least 12 point and maybe some more pictures. It's just very complicated to read. I was here probably three years ago, and I brought up what I observed about diversity. It says you have 82,000 staff, and yet it appears that you don't seem to have any BME people. You have a percentage of women, but there don't seem to be any men on the board or certainly from other nationalities. I think when I read your diversity, I can just summarize it. It says, "Our ambition is to become one of the most diverse and inclusive organizations in the world. A place where everyone, including employees, customers, partners, and suppliers, feel valued and respected and has a strong sense of belonging. We believe that by achieving this ambition, we will contribute to a better and more equal world. We'll also become a stronger organization with a richness of experience and views to guide us. Well, that evidently I feel, and just in terms of what was said earlier about we're very diverse, I think there's work to be done. Looking at your brochure, I wasn't clear about the apprentices and for people who are on low incomes. I think you need to include that because it's a very hard time for a lot of people, and I'm feeling, although I'm a shareholder, there's you and us, and we're not the same, in the same position. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you. I won't go over some of the things we've talked about in terms of gender diversity, but of course there is more to do, and Ben acknowledged that in his speech. We do look at ethnic diversity as well and I think I'm right that about a third of our workforce in the U.S. is of people of color and I think about 21% in the U.K. classifies themselves as of an ethnic minority. More to do, but we maybe it's not quite as evident to you as we should have made it and possibly made it in the report and I accept all of that. I think this is a company that is very serious about all dimensions of diversity, ethnic diversity, gender diversity and diversity in sexual identity and you know and we I think do some pretty decent stuff, but we clearly need to showcase it more. The police now have to have a diversity training, so maybe that's something you can look at. I Because the world is changing. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on the board. I suspect there are such people in Shell, having run another big company. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll go to question point number two, then I'll have a statement here, and then I'll go to question point number one. Sir, go ahead. Norm Edwards, shareholder. There's a growing lobby that there should be a windfall tax on the big oil companies. I think the government has said one thing against this is that the companies should increase their investments into the UK. What is Shell's strategy for trying to avoid the windfall tax? Are they sort of collaborating with other companies such as BP and the other majors in trying to convince the government that a windfall tax sounds a good idea, but in terms of the long-term economic strategy, it's not a good idea and that they should increase their investments into the UK? Of course, how does this go against your commitment not to increase your investment into new regions? Well, in general, we leave matters of a withholding tax to politicians, and our contribution to some of the factors that have risen to that is to commit to invest, you know, to secure here in the UK its energy supply and reduce its carbon footprint. David Bunch, who's with us today, he's the country head, recently talked about an investment plan of up to GBP 25 million. Million In the next 10 years, of which about 75% of that is in the lower carbon sector. Ben may want to say more about the dialogue that we have. As always, you know, we hope that any changes have a net effect of incentivizing investment and not the other way around. Yeah. Thank you very much. It is indeed a very topical subject. As chairman said, so we have plans to invest in this decade up to GBP 25 billion. Yeah In the UK, subject of course to all these individual projects being approved by this board. It's a very significant amount of money. As a matter of fact, we are already significant investors in the North Sea. Of course, more and more this investment will go into alternative sources of energy, charge points, other facilities, et cetera. About 75% of that GBP 25 billion will be in low or no carbon energy systems. Government is very much aware of that. As a matter of fact, we work with the government all the time to help them improve regulations, planning constraints and everything else for us to get ahead with it. Maybe you heard chairman talk about our Fulham EV charging station. Well, that took one year to build, and it took five years to get the permit for it. Yeah? You heard me talk about having a ScotWind floating wind park off the coast of Scotland. Well, if we go at the rate that we are currently going, it will take us 10 years before we get the permits for it. That, of course, cannot be the way it needs to be done, and Prime Minister very much agrees with that as well. Now, in terms of the dialogue, of course, we talk amongst the industry to the extent that it is permissible because there's only so much of course we can talk to each other, and we talk to the government as well. I will not tell you exactly what the details are. Of course, first of all, the prerogative for a windfall tax is the government's, not ours. There is good and bad ways of designing a tax structure, and if you do it in a bad way, then indeed, it can discourage investment as happened before. The supplementary charge that currently exists in the North Sea, so it's about, we pay corporation tax and then a supplementary charge on top of it. That, for instance, comes with investment allowances, so those who invest in new energy actually get partly their money back. From the supplementary charge. These types of mechanisms can actually be quite helpful mechanisms, and we continue to remind the government that there is good ways and maybe less good ways of doing it. In the end, it's a government decision. Thank you. I'll go with a statement online, and then I'll go to question point number one. It's a statement from Linda Patricia Mesney. "I suggest you give the protesters a few shares each and insist they attend the next online AGM meeting so that they can see what positive and detailed steps organizations are trying hard to make. I attended the Bedford Borough Local Agenda 21 workshop on sustainable communities in Bedford in the UK from the mid-1990s to early 2000s. Interesting and very constructive. It reported to the then minister of the environment, which then fed into the future UN ideas. I agree it's frightening that the LA 21, which was referred to earlier, started about 25 years ago, and there still seems to be more talk than walk. However, there were similar initiatives nationally and internationally. Perhaps a review process to involve the protesters in constructive ideas, feedback to those who are protesting. Also make them aware of the UN web pages and maybe their national UNA websites, such as the una.org.uk, and also the Together First initiative to mark 75 years of the United Nations. Thank you for all the work, and take care. That was the statement. Let's go to question point number 1. Thank you. Thank you very much. First of all, can I say how great it is that Shell has got an AGM back in the U.K. after so many years and as a single company? That's a marvelous thing to do after the second point. I'd just like to say to the chair, compliment you on steering the ship in these stormy waters today. Your first stormy Mm. AGM. Well done. Thank you, sir. I've actually got three topics which I'll go through quite quickly. The first one actually was slightly preempted a few minutes ago about windfall tax. I guess my question is very simply, what investments would Shell not do if it was subjected to a U.K. windfall tax? That's the first one. The second one I have is about Shell Energy, which is very much in the retail area that Shell operates in. In the most recent Which? magazine domestic customer survey of 18 energy supplying companies in the U.K. and published in March 2022 this year, Shell Energy was the second worst with a score of 53% versus the best, which was Octopus, with customer satisfaction score of 70%. The various criteria, customer service, bill accuracy, bill clarity, value for money, with maximum star rating of 5, Shell scored either 2 or 3 stars, and this was a survey done in September 2021. I drew attention to this poor performance at an AGM of Shell before COVID. The situation does not seem to have improved. This is definitely not a case of go well with Shell, indeed, quite the opposite. Does Shell Energy accept that it all is not well, and when will this be fixed? If I could just move on to my final point, sir. The subject of biofuels was mentioned also from on the line, and I just want to pick up a bit on liquid biofuels. Page 67 of the annual report and Page 17 of the energy transition booklet identifies that 9.1 billion liters of biofuel went into Shell's fuels worldwide. Some of this biofuel is bioethanol derived from the Raízen sugar-related operation in Brazil. The rest, I guess, will be from bioethanol from other bio sources, principally corn or maize, as we would call it over here, which in the U.S. is federally subsidized in preference to growing wheat for food and other cereals. Biodiesel from vegetable and animal fats and oil crops such as sunflower seed, and of course what you've mentioned several times already this afternoon, sustainable aviation fuel. Putting this into context, the U.S. is the largest gasoline market in the world. Heavily subsidized corn production has replaced wheat. In the 1960s, 47% of U.S. grain production was corn. It is now 70%. Half of the corn used in ethanol for trucks and cars is from coming from corn. In the U.S.A., this can add up to 15% of the fuel, and in the U.K. it's now 10%, E10 and E15. The U.S.A. share of world wheat export is now only 13%. It was 25% in the period 2001 to 2005. As a result of the Ukraine-Russia war, which you referred to at the beginning of this afternoon, the world is now in a food crisis situation as Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe and Russia were the major exporters of wheat, other cereals, and sunflower seeds. As you know, the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, a symbol of resistance. Your argument will be that this is justified in the pursuit of net zero by 2050, and it is economically attractive or mandated in some markets. However, I would suggest that it is ethically indefensible to continue using biofuels sourced from land which could be better used for food production. Can I ask that the board, as a priority, critically examines all its sources of biofuels, commits not to use any which compromise the use of land for food production and assures that all bio sources are truly sustainable? Thank you. Okay, well, there's three questions there. I mean, I think we've partly dealt with the biofuel question earlier, but I mean, I'll give a chance to Ben to add to that. And on Shell Energy performance, perhaps actually that's another one for you, Ben. It's very hard to give a sort of judgment about when you're seeing the changing in incentive regimes as to just what would happen. There's so many things are changing at the same time. I would just repeat that we would hope that any change in taxation or whatever that's to do with the current situation we find in terms of very high energy costs around the world, it balances the incentive to invest for the longer term, as well as looking after those in greatest hardship. Ben, maybe you might feel free to add to that as well, but you probably need to comment on Shell Energy and anything extra on biofuels. Yeah. Thank you very much, and I don't have anything to add on the windfall tax. I share your concern about the performance of Shell Energy. That is a performance that we have to turn around. I cannot negate what is there as a rating of the company. We're working very hard, by the way, to improve customer satisfaction. As you can imagine, it's a tough environment for our customers as well. Therefore, there is a lot of dissatisfaction in general, but some of it, I think, comes clearly from processes that can and should improve internally. On your biofuels question, you're right. These numbers are the numbers, and indeed, a significant quantum comes from our sugarcane ethanol in Brazil, which is a well-established business that has been there for decades, if not a century or more. Centuries, actually. Of course, predominantly sugar, but now increasingly, of course, also alcohol. As a matter of fact, there is no sugar shortage in the world at this point in time. We can switch between producing sugar and ethanol. The point is, indeed, that in the United States, there are legal obligations to put ethanol into the mix. We have to therefore buy if we want to sell petrol, and the only way to not comply with it is to just get out of the business, yeah? It's a government policy. Having said that, though, sir, I fully agree that we should have a biofuel long-term strategy that is focused on being not in competition with food, and that's exactly what we are doing. If you look, for instance, to one of the previous questions on alcohol for jet fuel, that is going to come from investments that we are making at the moment in our Brazil footprint of so-called second generation fuels. This is waste material that is currently left on the field to rot, plowed into the field perhaps, which we now collect and also convert into biofuels. There's five plants in the world that can do that, one of which is Raízen, and it is the only well-performing plant in the world. It shows you there is quite a technological challenge. A little bit to your question, we do have actually quite a bit of technology vision out there where we can be a leading player. Not only will we be building most likely 10 of these large scale second generation waste-based ethanol plants, we also are very far advanced in waste-based drop-in kerosene, for instance. At the moment, we use animal fats and the like, and waste oils, et cetera, but also those are not going to be sustainable in the long run. We have to look at garbage or woody biomass or rubbish in general. We have the technologies at breakthrough point to produce biofuels in that way. At this point in time, we're also, of course, beholden by government mandates that specify what one should do. It's not the long-term strategy of our company. Thank you. Can I just add? I don't think I added my name. David Sims, long-term Shell shareholder and also Shell pensioner. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll do one more question online, sir. If you sit down, and then I'll do your question. Is that okay? I'll do one question online, and then I'll take your question. We've got a question online from Anthony David Bradford Ware. "Good morning," he said, as it's now good afternoon. "Would you please give a clear and concise update on the future dividend policy for the company? In particular, what growth rate is anticipated given the experience of the recent dividend cut at the behest of Her Majesty's government during COVID? Many thanks." Well, I'm going to ask our new chief financial officer to answer this question. Although I just want to clarify one thing. I mean, I think by the recent dividend cut, they mean the one a couple of years back now. That was a result of a COVID-induced slump in the world economy. I don't think I could blame that entirely on the government here in the U.K. Since then, I think we've been growing the dividend and maybe Sinead, you could add some more color. Thank you very much. Mr. Ware, the concise answer, of course, is that we have a 4% progressive dividend. However, if I were to take a step back, I would say that, of course, we return to shareholders through a variety of elements, and our shareholder distributions, of course, include both buybacks as well. What you will have seen, of course, in the first half of this year is us following through on the $8.5 billion of share buybacks that we have also done. That is combined with the 4% progressive dividend, and you will see that $8.5 billion continue to play out until our Q2 results. What we've also said, of course, is that at our Q2 results, we will give an update with respect to our distributions. I won't go further than that at this point in time, apart from to clarify that we did say that we expect to be in excess of distributions in the second half of this year of 30% of CFFO, or cash flow from operations. Thank you. Okay. I think we go to here, question point number two, sir. Thank you very much indeed. Late afternoon now. Yes. My name is Peter Collier. I'm an individual shareholder. I came to Shell via, shall we say, British Gas, where I was an original sid. I'm going back a few years, one way or another. A few years ago at a Shell meeting, I was persuaded because I was talking to your Shell Energy people saying that my gas and electricity company was basically I was coming to the end of my contract, and I wanted to find out, so I was gonna start looking around, shall we say, for a new, shall we say, energy company. Well, I was persuaded to go to Shell. So I... I'm pleased in one way they haven't gone bust, while the likes of quite a few of the other energy companies are, shall we say, have gone bust. My question is, I'm on pension credit, and as I say, and I am worried about my gas and electricity bill increasing dramatically. How much it is at the moment, I don't know. I was hoping there'd be somebody here from Shell Energy I could most likely talk to afterwards one way or another after this meeting, you know, so I can talk about it. You've been talking about investment for the future. And as I say, the previous speaker was talking about how low down, i.e., shall we say, the quality performance of Shell Energy is to Octopus, which gives me, you know, food for thought. I want to give you, Shell Energy here, a chance to, in a way, redeem themselves. I'm on pension credit, and as you know down there, as you can see, I'm a pensioner. I don't have a private pension. I rely on what you call a state pension plus, their handout. I'll be interesting to know if you're going to invest in what you call members of the company who are on pensions credit, whether you will be able to give them what you call a very, very good discount on their gas and electricity to keep them as a member of Shell Energy. That's all I want to ask you. That's food for thought and something I shall look forward to hearing about and reading about, that you're going to do something for us pension credits, senior citizens, 'cause there's quite a few in this country. There might even be some here for all I know. As I say, I look forward to having a positive answer from the company. How much discount am I gonna get? Thanks very much. Well, I'm probably not going to answer the second part of your question. Peter, I do think there is somebody from Shell Energy here. Where are they, Nicola? I think they're at the registration desk. They're at the registration desk. On the way out, they may be able to talk to you if there is any aspect of your Shell Energy service or bill. We're obviously concerned about the hardship the high prices are causing and what measures we could introduce, including within Shell Energy, and I think they may be able to help you with that as well. Okay. Question point number one. Go ahead, sir. Yeah, it's pretty similar. You're obviously making fantastic profits at the moment. Why can't you just charge a bit less to your customers for gas, electric, oil, petrol, whatever, reduce your profits, head off any windfall tax, and that would benefit customers, the economy, everyone's a winner. It's a matter of policy. I mean, you either direct your help for the most vulnerable, or you give it to everybody. I think we prefer, and we're working on various things to divert the help that we could provide to the most vulnerable. Well, it seems like you're not providing it to anyone. Well, again, I don't know the details. I'm aware there are some hardship funds in some of our areas, but Maybe a few points to also bear in mind, sir. Of course, we very much recognize the concerns, not just in this country, many other countries where people are facing very significant increases in their energy cost. At the same time, of course, we are reporting very significant profits. These profits, of course, we do not necessarily make here in this country. Mostly, we don't make it in our energy retail business. They are actually quite slim businesses. We talked earlier about Shell Energy here in the UK. That's not a very profitable business. As a matter of fact, it's a loss-making business. Of course, yes, we do make profits in the international oil and gas markets, power markets, chemical markets, et cetera. What we can and should be doing is to make sure that not only is there more and better infrastructure in those parts of the world where there is a supply-demand mismatch, like here in this country, we do not have enough access to energy to bring energy prices in general down. Secondly, we have to have mechanisms where we retail to end customers, to consumers, like yourselves and other people, we have to have mechanisms to find how to protect the most vulnerable. We do have those mechanisms. We do have hardship funds. We do have funds to give people payment holidays. We do have other ways of making sure that those customers who are being hit by the escalation in cost and the rise with the release of the price cap actually get protected where that is due. We are, at this point in time, considering how we can extend that facility because we do not see, at this point in time, the problem getting any smaller anytime soon. We hope that we can demonstrate that we are a responsible player. To just say, let us just on the retail side of business make a loss because that would be what it would be, and then channel some of our international profits into those markets where we now are loss-making, is just not a sustainable way to run our business. Thank you. I've got one last question online and there are no questions on the phone. We've just checked that. There are no questions on the phone. The last question here online is from Robert James Michael Barrett. Windfall tax would deprive Shell of scope for debt repayment. I think that Shell should and wonder if Shell would commit to corporate debt repayment. Of course. As a priority over dividends and buyback of shares. Should we not also use cash flows to maintain Shell's credit rating? Well, of course, the choice with what to do with free cash is a big job of this board. You kind of outlined many of the things that we could do with it. The guidance, of course, is always sought from the CFO, maybe Sinead, you might want to add to that. Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Let's see if the microphone works. Indeed, it is a matter of balance. When we look at our financial framework, there are many elements that come to it. One is ensuring that we have a robust company that we can invest into the future and, of course, ensuring that we can spend the monies that we're talking about, which are more than $23 billion at the moment a year, investing into the future with that mix for the energy transition as well. It goes back to ensuring that our shareholders have the necessary distributions to reward them as well, whether that's through the buybacks that I discussed earlier or the progressive dividend that we also discussed. Beyond that, it is about ensuring that we have a healthy and robust balance sheet. In times like this, it is incredibly important to do so. You will, of course, seen that in Q1 we reduced our balance sheet by several billion as well in terms of the debt number to reduce the debt down. This is a balance that we go through. Our credit rating is important to us. It allows us for the future to be able to continue to invest, even if we see, situations where there are, turmoil in the markets, et cetera. We are doing that in a steady manner, and that balance is definitely there. I think it is clear to see it, say that we will be able to continue with a very robust financial framework and continue to monitor it accordingly. Thanks, Sinead. I see there's another question at question point number one. Is that correct? Yes. Go ahead, sir. John Quigley, a normal shareholder. Two things. Wind farms are very labor-intensive at the moment, aren't they, for the checking of the cables and the actual wind farms themselves. In Aberdeen, there is a company now that does robotic checking of the things. Is there any possibility that you might invest in that, where somebody on land can remotely check everything for your behalf and then do it that way? Secondly, with the wind farms, is there a storage facility? Is it for us to have the storage facility, or is it for, like, the national grid to provide a storage facility? Thank you. I think Ben will. Yeah Answer that. Thank you very much, Mr. Quigley. I'm not so sure whether wind farms are more labor-intensive than some of the other operations, but you're absolutely right. We always look at ways to deploy things like robotics and advanced digital technologies. Yeah to do things smarter. I'm not specifically aware of a robotics company in Aberdeen, but I will take it back to the team that we have looking at these types of investments. We have a in Shell a branch called Shell Ventures that continuously scans the market and see which promising startup companies or early life ideas are out there for us to grow up, invest in, then maybe become a customer of, or maybe even taking the company in if we believe it is strategic for us. This is definitely an idea that I will take back. On your battery question, yes, indeed, batteries are going to be needed, particularly, of course, to deal with the day and night variations. Many a time you need the electricity on moments when there is insufficient wind or insufficient sunshine. Dealing with that day/night variation is important. Increasingly, we're also beginning to see seasonal needs. We need to store energy in the summer for use in the winter. You can't really do it with a conventional battery, but maybe you can do this with other technologies like hydrogen again, for instance. What we actually see is a whole patchwork of storage and other technologies to deal with this problem that you cannot turn on the wind when you need it or you cannot turn on the sun when you need it. You have to somehow have a response to it, which is either storing it or maybe also asking certain customers to switch off because they can afford to switch off just for a few hours. That actually is part of our electrical strategy as well, to be a very clever operator of these types of technologies, quite often, of course, together with our customers, and in a way that also make money that we can share with our customers by bringing the cost of electricity down. That strategy is not fully implemented, of course. No company exists that can do this in the way that I just described, but it's very much at the heart of our strategy to be that type of player. We are always looking out for ideas like the ones that you mentioned. Thank you. Now, may I suggest yourself and your colleagues go on to the BBC iPlayer and look at last Saturday's edition of Click, the magazine, the electronic magazine, and you will see the robotic thing based in Aberdeen. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We've got one last question, Mr. Chair, online, which I'll read. This is a question from a Dutch shareholder, Mr. Jan Stolk. Shell reported over the last 10 years EUR 350 billion in operating cash flow. Shell paid out EUR 127 billion in dividend and share repurchases to shareholders, which is about one-third. How much of the operating cash flow has been invested in old energy and how much in new energy? How much of your prospective cash flow in euros over the next five years will then go into new energy, and how much will go into old energy? How fast will you be moving with your investments towards complying with the court decision in the Netherlands? In order for outsiders to monitor improvements, can Shell mention these exact amounts in its annual reports? Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Stolk. I mean, Ben and I have referred to aspects of this, of your question in some of our other answers. Just to repeat, when we take account of all funds that are going into new investments, then we think about a third is going into what you would call new energy, and two-thirds into old energy. By 2025, so that's almost the next five years, that should go over 50% into new energy. I'm not sure how much they relate to the court decision in the Netherlands. Ben, maybe you might want to add to that. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Stolk. It indeed, as Andrew says, this is a moving feast. We now see there are ever more opportunities to invest in low and no carbon energy products. That is basically because technology is coming of age. It is because customers demand it and are sometimes prepared to pay the so-called green premium that these products still have. We are much more imaginative and prepared to take risk to invest in technologies that may not be completely proven out yet. It will be a moving target. To look back and say, how much did you do 10 years ago is interesting perhaps, and we should consider to what extent we can make it all transparent and clear if we can still find it back, because we never did that type of accounting. Looking forward, of course, is much more important. Now, for the avoidance of any doubt, the court in the lower court in The Hague that rendered the verdict of a 45% reduction in our own emissions and a significant best-efforts obligation for our customers' emissions never said, "This means that you have to invest X, Y, or Z amount." Whatever it takes, we are going to reduce by 50% the emissions in our own operations, and we think this will all make economic sense. Of course, the emission reductions in our customers' operations, that actually needs to be a source of profit for us. Otherwise, there is no longevity in a company like ours. If indeed, we cannot make money by selling low and no carbon energy to our customers, then we have a problem, not as Shell, but as a world. Because if there is no money in the energy transition, what solution is there then? We will find that way, but it necessarily is not translatable to you have to invest this minimum amount of money. It is the outcome that matters, and that's how you should judge us on outcomes. Thank you, Ben. I think we have now. Yep ... covered all the questions presented. Yep. That brings us, yeah, to the conclusion of the meeting and onto the voting. We'll now move to the formal voting part of the meeting. Many of you will have already sent in your proxy cards and do not need to vote again. As I mentioned earlier, voting has been open throughout the meeting and will remain open for 15 minutes following the conclusion of the meeting. If you're unsure how to vote, then instructions are provided on Page 23 of the notice of meeting. As a reminder, we took the notice of meeting as read earlier in the meeting, so I will not be reading out each resolution. Proxy votes that have been submitted in advance of today's meeting amount to 4.55 billion votes, and that represents approximately 61% of the company's issued share capital. I'm now gonna put up a breakdown of the proxy results we have received on the screen. For those here in the room, Linda Coulter, the Company Secretary, will explain in more detail the voting procedure. Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Please cast your vote by completing your white paper poll card handed to you at registration. If you agree with the resolution, place an X in the box marked for. If you don't agree, place an X in the box marked against. If you wish to abstain, place an X in the box marked vote withheld. However, please note that the vote withheld option is not a vote in law and will not be counted in the votes for or against the resolution. The scrutineer will establish from the register how many shares you hold and will assume you wish to vote all your shares in the way you have indicated. If you wish to split your vote, please speak to a member of staff at the registration desk. If you have lodged a proxy form, you do not need to complete a poll card unless your proxy is not present or you wish to change the way your shares are voted. Please remember to sign your card and add today's date, which is May 24, 2022. Please note if you do not sign your card, we cannot count your votes. Please deposit your card in one of the ballot boxes which you will see clearly marked as you leave the auditorium. These boxes will be removed in 15 minutes or earlier if I'm satisfied that the voting process has completed. The final results of the poll votes, including the tally of votes cast by the shareholders attending online today, will be sent to the Amsterdam, London, and New York Stock Exchanges, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and shown on the Shell website tomorrow morning or later today if time permits. We thank you all for your time and your votes, and back to you, Chair. Thank you, Linda. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the meeting, and I'll leave you to your voting. For clarity, if you sign off by closing the Lumi platform, please rest assured that your votes cast before the voting cutoff time will still be counted. But before we leave, I'd like to close on a few points. First, as chair of the meeting, I'm of course charged with assuring safe conditions and maintaining order to facilitate the business of the meeting. It was that duty that compelled me to take the actions I took, somewhat reluctantly, to remove those who were disrupting the meeting. I do apologize for the break we had to take and of course, the long period before we could get started on the meeting. I really appreciate your patience and understanding with that. However, I want to be very clear, it was not the opposing nature of the messages that led to the expulsion of those disrupting. We and your board recognize that we do live in a rapidly changing world with numerous and significant societal and environmental challenges, including of course, climate change and the energy transition. We sincerely believe that the perspectives that have been shared today, whether positive or negative, orderly or disorderly, or whether in strong agreement or vehement disagreement, were shared with the intention to do what the speaker genuinely believes is the right thing to do and the right path to their goal. While we might disagree with either the whole or parts of some of the messages, or in some instances the way those messages were delivered, your board wholeheartedly respects that our shareholders and the public are entitled to voice those messages and to pursue their beliefs, so long as they do so in a safe and orderly manner. In fact, the reason we put our energy transition strategy forward as an advisory vote was part intended to obtain our shareholders' input, whether it was positive or negative. Your board firmly and unreservedly shares the goal of the world in achieving the Paris Agreement, as I think both Ben and I have made quite clear. The core disagreement, therefore, is not whether the Paris Agreement should be achieved or even when. It is only how the world achieves it. When we say the world, we include Shell as well as governments and all other industries and companies. Yes, all of us as consumers too. We all need to make the changes. Climate change is a global systemic problem, and we believe that resolving it requires a global systemic solution. Your board fully intends for Shell to continue to be part of that solution. Our energy transition strategy lays out how Shell has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. This includes how we're collaborating with our customers and others to be part of the solution. Our annual progress report reporting will demonstrate that change. Your advisory board tells us that our progress is currently meeting your expectations balance. Indeed, today's voting results on our energy transition resolution indicate that we appear to be on the right track. While we deeply thank you for your support, rest assured that our approach to the energy transition is an ongoing and of course, a dynamic process. We fully recognize we still have more work to do. With that, I wish you all a good day and thank you for attending and for your forbearance. On that note, I formally declare the 2022 annual general meeting closed.