By Janet Ekstract– NEW YORK – Just when you thought climate crises couldn’t get any worse, along comes the Dutch ruling from The Hague Court of Appeal, on November 12, that said British oil and gas giant, Shell Oil is not obligated to dramatically reduce its planet-heating pollution by 2030. This ruling comes amidst the COP29 climate summit taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan and overturns a previous ruling that had imposed steep carbon emissions reductions on Shell. As Shell CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement: “We are pleased with the court’s decision, which we believe is the right one for the global energy transition, the Netherlands and our company.” The previous ruling that was made in 2021, ordered Shell to cut its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels, including emissions from its own operations and from sales of its energy products. The Hague Court of Appeal did rule that Shell must limit its CO2 emissions to protect the planet from dangerous climate change but it stated there is insufficient agreement in climate science on a specific reduction percentage that an individual company should follow, so it dismissed the previous ruling. The November 12 ruling did acknowledge Shell for already working to reduce emissions from its own operations – scope 1 and 2 emissions and that forcing Shell to reduce emissions even further known as scope 3 emissions, would be ineffective. As Shell said: “A court ruling would not reduce overall customer demand for products such as petrol (gasoline) and diesel for cars, or for (natural) gas to heat and power homes and businesses.”
Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth Netherlands, the environmental campaigning group that brought the case against Shell, expressed its dismay at the ruling. Its director Donald Pols said though the decision itself “hurts” – he told CNN, “The court affirmed that companies…are responsible for the human rights violations resulting from climate change.” Pol added, “The judge also stated that the more than 800 fossil fuel projects (in Shell’s pipeline) are contradictory to its responsibility to act in accordance with human rights principles. These are all very important legal principles that… can be used in future court cases.” He said that his organization will study the ruling before making any decision on whether to file an appeal at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands.
The facts reveal, as analysts pointed out, that Shell has pushed back on a number of its climate targets in favor of boosting profits. Shell nixed the goal to cut its net carbon intensity in half by 2035 though it did pledge to halve emissions from its own operations by 2030 with the aim of becoming a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. This means Shell must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by mid-century, being accountable for all the pollution it produces and removes from the atmosphere. But the reality is that Shell keeps investing into fossil fuels on a much greater scale than it does in clean energy. According to Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Shell is responsible for 3% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, more than the majority of countries, individually emit. Pols cautioned that international climate agreements will be ineffective in wrestling with climate change if they exclude large corporate polluters, as the Paris Agreement does. He said that in 2015, when the accord was signed that only about 50 companies had emitted 80% of global CO2 pollution. Pols added: “It is as if the negotiations between governments have not adapted to the new economic and geopolitical reality of multinationals.” Meanwhile, Mark van Baal, the founder of Follow This, a group that aims to compel major energy companies to reduce emissions through shareholder votes at their annual meetings, said “The court’s decision… is a setback in the fight against the climate crisis.”
