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

Apparently the are not violating the law, but they will soon violate 'obligagtions'. From the WSJ...

'The court said that Shell wasn’t in breach of its obligation to reduce carbon emissions, but that there was an “imminent breach” and therefore set the reduction requirement. It said its ruling covered the emissions of the company’s own operations and also those of its suppliers and customers.'

Because there is no laundry next to my grocery store?

Or Because you have to wait for hours for the laundry to finish, so for some people it's two trips, or because there are queues. There are no carbon savings in using a laundry, and this discourse in carbon accounting illustrates the problem perfectly - it is not possible for a consumer to trace the supply chain used by some megacorp which combines 150 minerals from 50 countries over 6 modes of transport to conclude anything accurate about carbon footprint.

You mention politicians, but thats only coming round to politicians and regulation because the market has failed.

Shell can either start capturing carbon to lower their emissions, or perhaps they can sell to smaller firms. But those smaller firms are now under the same gun that Shell currently is. So investors in these smaller firms risk losing everything as well.

Already it is getting far far more difficult for fossil fuel companies to raise money for new extraction. Their stock prices have already taken massive hits.

Capital sees the writing on the wall, as does every single fossil fuel exec. It's not a matter of if extraction stops, but when. Many thought that there could be one more round of exploration, but this court decision is just one more huge hurdle for actually extracting anything from new exploration.

The tides are turning, we have alternatives to emissions now, the only question is if when we switch.

Shell is at fault for providing a product that causes harms and not rectifying that harm.

Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells.

I would love to shift some liability to city planners that have made so much of the population dependent on cars, and some liability to car manufacturers, and maybe even to the advocates that make it nearly impossible to build homes and workplaces that don't depend on cars. But the legal ground is much shakier.

And it's even possible to build cars that don't depend on carbon emissions, much of the liability that I would like to see shifted to car manufacturers is because they have actively foiled attempts to move off emitting power sources. But I wouldn't want to invest in a new ICE in this day and age. It's likely that it will be off the road long before its lifetime is over. Natural fleet turnover for our vehicles is not quick enough to solve the problem.

And if somebody else is going to "feed" our cars, they will be just as liable for the damage they cause.

A lot of people are going to have a HARD awakening in the coming decade. They have been believing the bullshit from fossil fuel companies, BS that even the fossil fuel companies didn't believe, but spread to eke out just another few years of profits before having to change their strategy. And the companies that refuse to disrupt themselves are the ones who will be forcefully disrupted.

This moment in time is like when the iPhone was released and Blackberry had no idea what was coming. Renewables are cheaper than natural gas right now, and by the time we need massive amounts of storage, renewables plus lithium ion batteries will be cheaper than combined cycle gas turbines. Every new natural gas asset will be stranded within the next decade, as new renewables+storage will be cheaper than the opex for continuing to burn gas.