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Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

euronews.com

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Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#51

Post by eloff »

dylan604 wrote: post #42
SCHiM wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! Burning fossil fuels is bad. Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Shell needs to leave that business in the very long term. What's the problem here?

>Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Playing devil's advocate, but what about all of the oil that is not burnt but turned into plastics and other products?

It's a very tiny percentage of oil that gets used in this way.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#52

Post by brtkdotse »

dylan604 wrote: post #42
SCHiM wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! Burning fossil fuels is bad. Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Shell needs to leave that business in the very long term. What's the problem here?

>Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Playing devil's advocate, but what about all of the oil that is not burnt but turned into plastics and other products?

Best case: It will end up burnt as trash.

Realistic case: it will end up in the oceans as microplastics

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#53

Post by yohannparis »

sfvisser wrote: post #43
epistasis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a good thing to make illegal! It's really weird to me how CO2 emissions are casually justified, and so many people resist the idea that companies could be held legally liable for knowingly causing harm. For pretty much any other situation, a business based on those terms would be heavily chastised and scorned, but for some reason companies like Shell get a pass for 1) doing research to discover that they a…

It’s not that weird if you consider that despite the negative externalities all the CO2 producing processes delivered huge upsides to literally everybody. It’s not just Shell to blame, it’s all of us. We did this, we had good reasons to do so and now we should probably dial back.

The difference is that Shell, and other petroleum companies, knew the harm of CO2 for 50 years, consumers only half of that roughly.

They could have start investing and do R&D on alternative and mitigation and help us move forward. But no, they just buried it under the rugs to get our money.

That is deception, especially when they will not be the ones responsible for cleaning up the mess.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#54

Post by berkes »

epistasis wrote: post #15
FridayoLeary wrote: post #8

>"Shell will adjust its policy so that it will also emit less CO2 in real-time." Yes, they will just dust off their magic wands and wave them round a bit and poof! No more CO2! Because up until now they have just been ignoring all the calls for climate change. I'm incredibly cynical about this. Not because of the naive sounding statement, nor because i care too much about Shells bottom line. It's simply because this…

> Also, it sounds unreasonable to tell a company whose principal product produces CO2 to stop making it No, it's not unreasonable. And it's far less unreasonable to demand damages for the harm they've done through lying about what they know and the damage it causes. Companies like Shell have been saying that they can perform CO2 capture and sequestration to reduce emissions. But they haven't actually done it. It's ti…

> Shell can either adapt their workforce and knowledge to a disrupted economy

While this may sound "unreasonable" or "bad for profits" to many, the Finnish Neste does exactly this[1]. Pooring all their investments in not just "lowering carbon emissions" but becoming carbon-negative really fast.

[1] https://www.neste.com/about-neste/who-we-are/strategy/transf... - their own story, but many news outlets have their story from a more neutral point and all agree that Neste is going full-renewable very fast. (disclaimer: I own stocks in Neste)

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#55

Post by chefkoch »

gruez wrote: post #45
SCHiM wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! Burning fossil fuels is bad. Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Shell needs to leave that business in the very long term. What's the problem here?

> I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! I'd be pretty pissed off too if one day [item] were legal and the next day the courts declared them to be illegal because of some vague law (ie. because of a tort or "the right to life and the right to family life"). In your comment the [item]…

>I'd be pretty pissed off too if one day [item] were legal and the next day the courts declared them to be illegal

They lied for decades about the dangers of climate change.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#56

Post by MrGLaDOS »

nomercy400 wrote: post #28

What does it mean to 'cut' emissions by 45%? Is that relative (e.g. to total production)? Is it an absolute number (e.g. N tons CO2)? Does this take company growth into account? What if Shell split off their CO2 production business in another company (e.g. Shell RED), does the original company now have 100% less CO2 production (e.g. Shell GREEN)?

"The assessment culminates in the conclusion that RDS is obliged to reduce the CO2 emissions of the Shell group’s activities by net 45% at end 2030 relative to 2019 through the Shell group’s corporate policy. This reduction obligation relates to the Shell group’s entire energy portfolio and to the aggregate volume of all emissions (Scope 1 through to 3). It is up to RDS to design the reduction obligation, taking account of its current obligations and other relevant circumstances. The reduction obligation is an obligation of result for the activities of the Shell group, with respect to which RDS may be expected to ensure that the CO2 emissions of the Shell group are reduced to this level. This is a significant best-efforts obligation with respect to the business relations of the Shell group, including the end-users, in which context RDS may be expected to take the necessary steps to remove or prevent the serious risks ensuing from the CO2 emissions generated by the business relations, and to use its influence to limit any lasting consequences as much as possible." Excerpt from the court sentence: https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:...

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#57

Post by Melkman »

treeman79 wrote: post #4
gruez wrote: post #2

What's the legal basis of this lawsuit? Are they violating some sort of law? Are they not violating any law, but just doing "bad"? The article isn't clear. >"Shell is the biggest polluter in the Netherlands. The company emits nine times as much CO2 as the entire Netherlands combined. Surely this is because shell is a multinational company and the netherlands is a small country?

Curious as to response. Ignoring that a higher court doesn’t just overturn this. Blacklisting Netherlands seems in the realm of possibility. As in, no oil or oil based products being allowed into country.

It would be weird if Royal Dutch Shell blacklisted the Netherlands. They might very well do a Unilever [1] and re-register as a UK only business.

But since this is also based on EU law they'd basically have to leave all their business in the EU. Which would probably reduce their carbon footprint by the requested amount. ;-)

Also BP, Exxon, Mobile and other petro companies: Better watch out since the chance of lawsuits like this agains them is pretty big.

An in an other also: EU is struggling [2] to reach reductions in CO2 emissions. This can help a little.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/11/unilever-pi...

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-07/eu-says-c...

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#58

Post by Lutger »

dannykwells wrote: post #29

"Ruling will only hold in the Netherlands". I can see Shell just exiting the Netherlands rather than lowering emissions by 45% globally . Another weak, symbolic ruling from a European court.

Hopefully other courts will follow. There's talk in France of making ecocide a crime against humanity, this judgement is also partly based on a humans rights arguments.

I know we still enjoy our chocolate icecream with slave labour from African children and consume our tech gadgets built on the blood of an Uyghur genocide - but hey you got to start somewhere!

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#59

Post by Aperocky »

MrGLaDOS wrote: post #56
nomercy400 wrote: post #28

What does it mean to 'cut' emissions by 45%? Is that relative (e.g. to total production)? Is it an absolute number (e.g. N tons CO2)? Does this take company growth into account? What if Shell split off their CO2 production business in another company (e.g. Shell RED), does the original company now have 100% less CO2 production (e.g. Shell GREEN)?

"The assessment culminates in the conclusion that RDS is obliged to reduce the CO2 emissions of the Shell group’s activities by net 45% at end 2030 relative to 2019 through the Shell group’s corporate policy. This reduction obligation relates to the Shell group’s entire energy portfolio and to the aggregate volume of all emissions (Scope 1 through to 3). It is up to RDS to design the reduction obligation, taking acco…

That sounds like Shell can use more teslas.

while selling the same amount of fuel if not more.

Hey at least we are not releasing the CO2 emission.

Re: Shell ordered to cut CO2 emissions by 45% in landmark climate case

#60

Post by aaronbeekay »

gruez wrote: post #45
SCHiM wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! Burning fossil fuels is bad. Shell is in the business of producing fossil fuels to burn. Shell needs to leave that business in the very long term. What's the problem here?

> I mean, just imagine, you go the the slave market and they tell you that the court ordered them to stop selling slaves on the basis that some laws say that you cannot do so! I'd be pretty pissed off too if one day [item] were legal and the next day the courts declared them to be illegal because of some vague law (ie. because of a tort or "the right to life and the right to family life"). In your comment the [item]…

Firstly, I think there’s a pretty clear difference between enslavement, which is a practice that intentionally deprives human beings of their rights, often violently and often en masse, and beef, coffee, and chocolate, which are food products that are enjoyed by consumers around the world.

Secondly, neither slavery nor the use of CO2-generating industrial processes were suddenly found to be objectionable overnight. Both have been the subject of intense attention across the globe and over decades. Nobody at Shell is surprised that carbon dioxide is a problem. They have made the choice to continue to invest in and defend their business model for many years.

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