Shell defeats environmentalists: it will not have to cut emissions by 45%

Shell will not have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to 2019) as a Dutch court had ordered it to do. In fact, the British multinational won its appeal against the 2021 ruling, which was also appealed by the climate activists who had brought (and won) the first instance case, led by the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, and who complained about the oil giant's poor efforts to cut emissions.

In its ruling, the Hague Court of Appeal emphasises that Shell has a duty to limit its production of greenhouse gases, but explains that it overturned the first instance ruling because 'there is currently insufficient consensus among climatologists on a specific percentage of emission reductions to which an individual company should adhere'. There are two reasons for this in fact: the indication of a specific threshold and the fact that it was only imposed on Shell, especially as the energy company 'could fulfil its obligations by stopping marketing the fuels it buys from third parties. Other companies would take over this trade' and thus the cut would have no positive effect on the environment.

In 2021, the Dutch court had in fact ordered Shell to reduce three types of carbon emissions: those coming directly from its operations, those from energy used, and those originating from the supply chain and customers. And most of Shell's emissions, around 90%, fall into the third category.

The appeal ruling, against which there remains the possibility of an appeal to the Supreme Court in Ollad, sounds like a wake-up call for the numerous lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies in recent years and was greeted with understandable disappointment by the many climate activists who had gathered on the steps of the court. It comes, incidentally, at the opening of COP29, the conference of the parties to combat climate change in Baku, surrounded by low expectations, and in the aftermath of the election to the White House of Donald Trump, who immediately promised to take the US back out of the Paris Climate Accords.

'It hurts,' commented Donald Pols, director of Milieudefensie, after the verdict. It could have been a very important step, but the battle is not over yet'. In this regard, Pols emphasises some 'positive points' of the ruling, such as the fact that the court said that Shell has an individual responsibility to reduce emissions and that exploration for new oil and gas fields contravenes the Paris Agreement.