Dutch court orders Shell to almost halve its greenhouse gas emissions

Climate protection is not just about governments and consumers. Private companies are also legally obliged to restrict their emissions, according to the jurisprudence that begins to establish the judgment issued yesterday by a district court in The Hague, which establishes that the oil company Shell “can” and “must” reduce its net emissions by 45% until 2030 taking as a reference those of 2019.

The court points the way through which it can achieve this, mentioning both its own companies and suppliers and end users, and criticizes the measures taken so far as “unspecific and full of reservations”. It also forces the company to seek relationships with consumers that reduce _CO2 emissions. The court agrees with the plaintiff NGO, Friends of the Earth, which denounced last December that Royal Dutch Shell “emits substantially more than all Dutch companies and citizens combined”, and makes binding on companies the limits set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) and the objectives of the Paris agreement. Shell called the ruling “disappointing” and announced an upcoming appeal.

This is a “sign of global importance”, Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth (Milieudefensie), reacted yesterday. Olaf Bandt, president of the Association for the Environment and Nature Conservation of Germany (BUND), sees in this court decision a turning point: “The fossil age is coming to an end, now for real.” Also hailing the sentence was climate activist Greta Thunberg, calling the verdict via social media a “very interesting start that could have a huge snowball effect,” although the reduction of _CO2 in the set amount remains “insufficient” for her.

Climate strategy

“Shell’s failure is a turning point for the oil and gas industry. It recognises that Shell has an obligation to draft its climate strategy in such a way that the 1.5 degree target can be achieved,” explains Carroll Muffett, director of the Centre for International Environmental Law (Ciel), who stresses that the court deliberately points out that this ruling must have clear consequences for the oil company’s future investments.

It will surely have influence on the investment strategy of other companies lagging behind in the objectives such as Exxon Mobil or Chevron, in addition to opening the possibility of new lawsuits, a path that has been cleared by Roger Cox, the 53-year-old Dutch lawyer, representative of the plaintiffs and pioneer of climate justice, that is, the idea of taking the fight against climate change to the courts. Cox was also a lawyer for the organization Urgenda, which in 2015 forced the Dutch state to meet its self-proclaimed climate goals. “If science is right, this is the greatest threat to humanity to date, the greatest violation of human rights. I focused the case on human rights and the law of civil liability and tort.” “In addition to Urgenda and Shell, we have a similar lawsuit in Belgium that will be decided in early July,” he said after learning of the ruling.

Source: ABC