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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

#151

Post by ppf »

chriswarbo wrote: post #122
zackees wrote: post #63

China creates more CO2 than the rest of the world combined. Destroying a company like this while giving China a free pass is essentially killing competition on China’s behalf. Also, there is no live experiment showing CO2 is the source of global warming. All the models are in silica and the IPCC has been hit with a major email breach showing major manipulation of the data to hide the decline of temperature data.

> 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.

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

#152

Post by akvadrako »

mrfusion wrote: post #117

How come their stock isn’t way down? I’d expect a 50% drop.

Maybe people don't expect the ruling to stand. Shell is 11% of the AEX stock index. If they were forced to halve their operations just because of a change in the courts interpretation it would create a significant lack of confidence in the business legal environment. The Dutch government is more business friendly than that.

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

#153

Post by chriswarbo »

adventured wrote: post #107
ppf wrote: post #67

> Coal, oil and gas need to stay in the ground. People around the world are demanding climate justice I look forward to seeing an EV battery manufactured entirely using renewable energy, instead of the current situation where developing countries burn huge amounts of brown coal to power their manufacture. In my opinion, this is just mandated destruction of Western industry, and completely meaningless until we demand…

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 US! Is this meant to be some sort of argument against decarbonising, since all it tells me is that even more needs to be done.

> you can now take emissions to zero in the developed world and it won't matter at all unless you stop China's runaway output. And that's before Africa adds another billion people in the coming decades and seeks a similar pattern of development (again, the green theater is all a bullshit fraud unless the plan is to stop all of this development across the board immediately, otherwise none of it matters).

Why do you think "the developed world" isn't zero emissions already? I'll give you a clue: it's the same reason countries like China continue to build up their fossil fuel infrastructure (alongside some of the largest rollouts of nuclear and renewable energy, I might add!)

It's because we, as a species, don't have the technology and manufacturing throughput to easily switch over completely to renewables (although we can get pretty far already, and should not wait if there are existing solutions). That needs a lot more investment, in time and money. That is simply unafforable to many developing countries, who need to lift their populations out of poverty right now.

Many developed countries do have the time and money; their populations aren't dying off from preventable diseases, so they can afford to invest heavily in this tech. Once we do have sufficient technology and manufacturing capability, it can be sold to the developing world. It's a sound business investment, but the startup capital is simply too high for many countries like those in Africa to cover. (Note that China is a huge investor in technology and manufacturing too)

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

#154

Post by mikeyjk »

ffggvv wrote: post #83
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?

can you not compare the brutal practice of slavery (and accompanying rape and torture) to fossil fuels? it’s deeply offensive to those whose ancestors actually were slaves

Is the issue that the comparison is bad and/or doesn't add much value - or just that we should generally avoid discussing that topic unless directly related?

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

#156

Post by Isinlor »

adventured wrote: post #107
ppf wrote: post #67

> Coal, oil and gas need to stay in the ground. People around the world are demanding climate justice I look forward to seeing an EV battery manufactured entirely using renewable energy, instead of the current situation where developing countries burn huge amounts of brown coal to power their manufacture. In my opinion, this is just mandated destruction of Western industry, and completely meaningless until we demand…

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 same from others.

And if China will not be meeting its targets I see no reason to not impose import taxes on China.

We could monitor China emissions from space and tax accordingly.

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

#157

Post by adamsvystun »

whatever1 wrote: post #142

Great news for OPEC, Russian & Chinese oil producers! Now they will be for sure the lowest cost to serve suppliers!

From HN guidelines [0]:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

You could have said:

"Punishing supply would not do much without decreasing demand, it will just redistribute the profits. Moreover, the profits might go to less morally sound places."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#158

Post by rkk3 »

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…

> 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 continue to do so for some time. Currently its around 13,000 per year in the US.

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

#159

Post by solarkraft »

dbingham wrote: post #128
solarkraft wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever find yourself making this argument, ask yourself very hard whether you are the bad guy.

Just for clarity's sake, the argument you're referring to is the "If we don't do it, others will" argument that Shell made, right?

Yep.

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

#160

Post by xyzelement »

kemitche wrote: post #146
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…

> From a quality and sustainability of human life, these were terrible times. Unchecked, climate change will ALSO lead to terrible times for humans. Just because it's not immediately impactful, does not make it ignorable. From that perspective, it's arguable that our options are "Some amount of near-term lowering of quality of life" or "A large amount of long-term, in the future, loss of quality of life." Continuing…

I think you're saying essentially the same thing as the last paragraph of my post, so not sure why there's an argument.

But sure, there's a long run place we want to get to. Today, we're not at that place and we're depending on fossil fuels. So why are we vilifying them and the companies that provide them? Sounds like we should simply work on replacements, like nuclear.

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