Science Museum signed “gagging clause” with sponsor Shell – Culture Unstained

…  Since Shell was announced as the sponsor of the [London] Science Museum’s ‘Our Future Planet’ exhibition on climate solutions in April, a major backlash has unfolded with scientists, exhibition contributors and the wider public speaking out through protests, petitions and a youth-led boycott of the exhibition. Youth climate strikers UKSCN London were particularly unhappy to discover that the museum had included placards within the Shell-sponsored exhibition from the London youth strikes in March 2019 without the strike organisers’ knowledge or consent. Last month, the museum shut down an overnight protest and 24-hour livestream broadcast led by UKSCN London against the sponsorship deal. Thirty police officers entered the museum and proceeded to threaten the group of teenage activists and scientists with arrest, despite other museums such as Tate Modern and the British Museum facilitating larger overnight protests against oil sponsorship.

The protest followed an open letter from the group to the Science Museum demanding that it drops Shell sponsorship, which was signed by 200 young activists, scientists, organisations and frontline groups, and the launch of a boycott of the exhibition, which has logged over 5800 boycott pledges. Both UKSCN London and Scientists for XR held protests during the opening week of the exhibition, with the scientists locking themselves to the Shell-sponsored exhibit for several hours. A petition started by the group BP or not BP? calling for the sponsorship to be dropped was signed by over 57,000 people.

Shell is facing intense scrutiny over its current business plans, which allow it to continue exploring for and extracting oil and gas when the International Energy Agency – and the climate science – says that to hit the Paris target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C there can be no new investment in oil and gas exploration. Instead, Shell is relying on tree planting and unproven future technology such as carbon capture and storage as a ‘get out of jail free’ card to keep polluting. In the last two months it has faced a significant shareholder rebellion over the weakness of its climate plans, a landmark ruling from a Dutch Court that the firm must curb its emissions by 45% by 2030 to be in line with Paris targets – which Shell is appealing against, and criticism over its 30% stake in the new Cambo oil and gas field off the coast of Shetland, which the UK government is controversially considering approving in the run-up to the COP26 Climate Summit.