Shell Australia chair Zoe Yujnovich has strengthened her call for Australia to adopt a carbon price “as quickly as we can”.

Speaking at a Leadership Matters breakfast in Perth this morning, the Perth-raised engineer said she believed humans had contributed to global warming.

“I do believe our modern and industrial life has had a role to play in increasing the temperatures,” she said.

The call for urgent action came after Ms Yujnovich earlier this month said governments had a role in encouraging lower carbon choices “perhaps through government-led carbon-pricing mechanisms that avoid the pitfalls of previous designs”.

In contrast to the adoption of a carbon price, Ms Yujnovich advocated a slow and steady approach to the start of production at Shell’s giant Prelude floating LNG vessel off the Kimberley.

Camera Icon More than 400 people attended the first Leadership Matters series event for 2019 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre this morning. Credit: Ian Munro

Camera Icon The West Australian’s group business editor Ben Harvey quizzes Shell’s Zoe Yujnovich. Credit: Ian Munro

Ms Yujnovich said she expected the project, which had targeted producing cashflow in 2018, to be in stable operations this year.

“The next milestone for us will be the first LNG cargo,” she said.

The former Rio Tinto executive said it was important for Shell not to take short cuts when commissioning Prelude.

“Fortunately a company like Shell has the balance sheet capacity to be patient,” she said.

“I think it’s really important when you look at projects like Prelude that you do have companies that can actually look at things through a time horizon which doesn’t simply have to be tied to the next cash cycle or the next payment cycle.”

Ms Yujnovich said heavy industry needed a culture that made paramount the safety of its employees and the environment.

She said Shell used safety as its guiding light to orientate the organisation because the risks of not doing so could be catastrophic, and argued leaders had to call out unacceptable behaviours to avoid the appearance of silent endorsement.

Ms Yujnovich said the resources industry had a fundamental obligation to provide value to the Australian people and local content was “absolutely essential to our licence to operate”.

The next (Prelude) milestone for us will be the first LNG cargo.

If given five minutes to say one thing to the next Australian prime minister she said she would call for no retrospective changes that affect past investment decisions.

“If we do that then I am confident that it will really compromise the sovereign risk of our country,” she said.

“And the capital that currently needs to flow here to backfill projects which is so critical to the next wave of construction and operation won’t come.”