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

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

#161

Post by chriswarbo »

ppf wrote: post #151
chriswarbo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China creates more CO2 than the rest of the world combined. I've never seen a murderer walk free by telling a judge "this other guy did more murders than me". > giving China a free pass What is this "free pass" of which you speak? > All the models are in silica Utter bollocks. Babbage never built his analytical engine, so I doubt Fourier, Foote and their contemporaries were using climate modelling software.

>What is this "free pass" of which you speak? We gladly buy almost everything from China (lithium batteries, electronics, wind turbines, solar panels, all of which take a tremendous amount of energy to manufacture), without ever asking if they were made in a "CO2 neutral" way.

Oops, sorry I forgot that there's no such thing as life-cycle assessment, amortised cost analysis, payback periods or any of the similar analyses performed every day by engineers, purchasers, operators, accountants, companies and governments. I guess they haven't been invented yet. Sounds like you've found a gap in the market; why not pitch it to YC?

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

#162

Post by skeeter2020 »

dalbasal wrote: post #137
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?

>> Are they violating some sort of law? This kind of question is literally determined in such court cases. There are laws about polluting, causing harm to people, the environment and such. Giving these laws meaning in practice is what courts do. Of course, any legal system "pretends" that they're actually just interpreting... but this is never really true. If you gave an alien lawyer a book of laws, without the accom…

>> Laws don't come from gods,

There is a huge body of historical law in the western world that comes from the decree of the king, literally a god.

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

#163

Post by MrGLaDOS »

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?

About the legal basis: "RDS’ [Royal Dutch Shell] reduction obligation ensues from the unwritten standard of care laid down in Book 6 Section 162 Dutch Civil Code, which means that acting in conflict with what is generally accepted according to unwritten law is unlawful. From this standard of care ensues that when determining the Shell group’s corporate policy, RDS must observe the due care exercised in society. The interpretation of the unwritten standard of care calls for an assessment of all circumstances of the case in question." 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

#164

Post by skeeter2020 »

robert_foss wrote: post #147
tito wrote: post #141

Sounds like this could push Shell to fund a beachhead market to get carbon removal companies started up. Note: folks seriously interested in carbon removal or starting a carbon removal company should check out http://airminers.org

Carbon capture is such an red herring it's not even funny. For years carbon dioxide intense industries have been talking about it in order to avoid clamp downs on their factories/power plants. When it comes down to it, it just isn't a fiscally viable technology.

now they're changing tactics by bushing "blue" hydrogen. It dovetails nicely with the carbon sequestration spin

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

#165

Post by ppf »

chriswarbo wrote: post #153
adventured wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely meaningless. It's a sick joke. China recently overtook the entire developed world combined in greenhouse gas emissions [1] and their output is still set to keep climbing for decades yet. Very soon they'll be at three times the emissions of the US. And meanwhile they're building new coal power plants as fast as they can put them up. None of this Shell type stuff matters. Not one bit. It's fake, laughab…

> China recently overtook the entire developed world combined in greenhouse gas emissions [1] and their output is still set to keep climbing for decades yet. Very soon they'll be at three times the emissions of the US. Is that meant to be some sort of argument against reducing emissions? If the US managed to reach zero-emissions ahead of China, then China would be releasing infinity times more greenhouse gasses than…

The relative emissions of China and the developed world are linked. Every time we mandate some new energy-intensive technology (eg, EVs, solar, etc), and also ban the methods of manufacture in the developed world, it's China that gladly digs up some more brown coal and makes the stuff for us.

Until we also mandate the complete CO2 lifecycle of all the products we import, this is a completely meaningless move (by the Dutch court). Saying that we are currently "switching over to renewables", while ignoring exactly how that is happening (that is, by importing everything, with the aforementioned issues), is just self-delusional.

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

#166

Post by flavius29663 »

yohannparis wrote: post #53
sfvisser wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

we all know the dangers of plastics, they found micro-plastics in all living things, and huge concentrations in mothers' milk. Are we going to sue dupont in 2 decades as well?

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

#167

Post by nradov »

rkk3 wrote: post #158
xyzelement wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Burning fossil fuels is bad. I would say that like many things in life, it's a tradeoff. There're costs and benefits to using these things. Talking about one side but not the other doesn't make sense. Quick personal example - I lived through energy shortages as a kid in the Soviet Union. Situations where there was no heat in the winter and/or no fuel for cars and public transport. From pure fossil fuel consumption…

> At the very least "burning fossil fuels is bad" is a statement of privilege. A person who's cold or unable to travel or get necessities delivered would never say this. You could extend this argument "Slavery is bad", "Genocide is bad", "War is bad" etc. are all statements of "privilege". Completely ignoring climate change, particulate pollution from fossil fuels has killed a terrible amount of people and will conti…

How many people would have died if they didn't have affordable access to power, heat, and transportation from fossil fuels? Particulate emissions are a risk but tighter emissions standards have done a lot to mitigate that problem.

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

#168

Post by ppf »

chriswarbo wrote: post #161
ppf wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is this "free pass" of which you speak? We gladly buy almost everything from China (lithium batteries, electronics, wind turbines, solar panels, all of which take a tremendous amount of energy to manufacture), without ever asking if they were made in a "CO2 neutral" way.

Oops, sorry I forgot that there's no such thing as life-cycle assessment, amortised cost analysis, payback periods or any of the similar analyses performed every day by engineers, purchasers, operators, accountants, companies and governments. I guess they haven't been invented yet. Sounds like you've found a gap in the market; why not pitch it to YC?

Oddly enough, I don't see a "carbon-neutral" lifecycle assesment done for all the solar panels on the market. Or on an EV, discounting the ridiculous "carbon exchange" system.

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

#169

Post by skeeter2020 »

xyzelement wrote: post #132
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?

> Burning fossil fuels is bad. I would say that like many things in life, it's a tradeoff. There're costs and benefits to using these things. Talking about one side but not the other doesn't make sense. Quick personal example - I lived through energy shortages as a kid in the Soviet Union. Situations where there was no heat in the winter and/or no fuel for cars and public transport. From pure fossil fuel consumption…

Most people equate reducing fossil fuels with buying an electric car or public transport. They are woefully oblivous to the impact on food production, bulk transport and shelter & heating impacts.

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

#170

Post by ppf »

Isinlor wrote: post #156
adventured wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely meaningless. It's a sick joke. China recently overtook the entire developed world combined in greenhouse gas emissions [1] and their output is still set to keep climbing for decades yet. Very soon they'll be at three times the emissions of the US. And meanwhile they're building new coal power plants as fast as they can put them up. None of this Shell type stuff matters. Not one bit. It's fake, laughab…

When you wage a war you take any wins you can. You fight for every corner and every street. Western policies create a forcing function on the technology development. We need to make products so good that they win even without climate emergency. Tesla is a perfect example of that. Solar energy soon will also be simply better than any fossil fuels. It is also important to have your own stuff together when demanding the…

Why would we tax imports from China, when they make 90% of our solar modules?
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