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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

#281

Post by epistasis »

kolbe wrote: post #278
epistasis wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this analogy, one might think that Shell is Marlo and society is the security guard, but the reality is that the roles are reversed. If Shell does not change their game, they will die. Global capital is coming to terms with this, though there are still a few executives in power at banks that don't realize it. Fossil fuel companies skate by because they have access to cheap loans right now. But as that dries up, so…

That isn’t at all the analogy. Quit reducing this to a war on climate. The “way the world is” corporations are highly mobile, and they engage in regulatory arbitrage. If RDS’s home country wants to put an onerous requirement on them, they will leave to a country that won’t. If landing a tiny little punch on RDS in order to lose hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars in import revenue to their country, then…

Not really sure how what you describe here relates to the story from The Wire.

But in any case, this will materially affect climate change in as far as NL is going to be reducing their carbon footprint. It will materially affect climate change in that it will embolden further lawsuits, in other countries.

It will materially benefit the Dutch people in that either Shell will switch away from fossil fuels to more economically efficient carbon free economic activity, or Shell will leave and the Dutch will have some other business take the place that it better suited to the future.

Today, activist investors took over 2-3 seats on Exxon's board to push Exxon to a lower carbon future.

Finance is already fleeing from exploration of new fossil fuel. Fossil fuel companies are taking out loans to pay dividends, to trick investors into thinking that nothing is wrong. Their stock prices are taking a nose dive.

Shell, and all the oil majors, have a very short time period to change their ways, or they will be abandoned by investors as they have destroyed their future earnings potential, and acquire massive liability for their externalities.

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

#282

Post by ppf »

imtringued wrote: post #251
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.

If China did nothing but produce those things then we should praise China because all its CO2 emissions exist for the sake of reducing CO2 emissions. The real problem is that they also produce everything else.

Sure, except that rulings like the one in this article hinder western countries from being able to do the same (that is, manufacture their own solar panels and other energy-intensive "renewable" products).

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

#283

Post by xapata »

karaterobot wrote: post #257
xapata wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between prohibition and regulation or taxing. Taxing and regulating alcohol seems to be working quite well.

Working quite well for what purpose?

Taxes appear to have a proportional effect on consumption in several categories (alcohol, tobacco, etc.), so they're a good policy tool. Much better than trying to prohibit.

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

#284

Post by ric2b »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #162
dalbasal wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Kings aren't gods, regardless of how much they claim to be.

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

#285

Post by ric2b »

neaanopri wrote: post #205
matheusmoreira wrote: post #22

Now this is something that could have an actual impact on carbon emissions. The sooner these fossil fuel companies get fined or taxed the better.

Fossil fuel companies aren't greedy monopoly men burning oil for no reason. Oil companies sell oil to consumers. Imagine if US gas prices went up overnight to $10/gallon. There would be riots. Jan 6th would look like a warm-up. But does anybody realistically think that they can carbon-capture 1 gallon of gas's worth of carbon emissions for $7? How much would it realistically cost? It's willful ignorance to think that…

> Fossil fuel companies aren't greedy monopoly men burning oil for no reason.

But, as in this court case, they are greedy monopoly men advertising dangerous lies to the public to keep selling their product.

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

#286

Post by matheusmoreira »

neaanopri wrote: post #205
matheusmoreira wrote: post #22

Now this is something that could have an actual impact on carbon emissions. The sooner these fossil fuel companies get fined or taxed the better.

Fossil fuel companies aren't greedy monopoly men burning oil for no reason. Oil companies sell oil to consumers. Imagine if US gas prices went up overnight to $10/gallon. There would be riots. Jan 6th would look like a warm-up. But does anybody realistically think that they can carbon-capture 1 gallon of gas's worth of carbon emissions for $7? How much would it realistically cost? It's willful ignorance to think that…

We should all just switch to electric vehicles already. It'll suck at first but eventually it will be normal.

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

#287

Post by matheusmoreira »

mrinfinite wrote: post #279
acdha wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is too fatalistic. There are tons of things which can be done to reduce CO2 and the sooner we do the more time we gain for bigger transformations. The big thing would be sending a strong public message that gas will only get more expensive every year: that discourages sales of inefficient vehicles which will be polluting for a couple of decades, pushes businesses to invest in major capital investments no…

The best way to cut down on oil use is to personally use less electricity and enjoy a lower standard of living.... suing people will mot help... only solution is accepting a lower stanndard of living.

There is no need to accept anything. Can you imagine how much energy would be generated if we somehow replaced every roof with solar panels? I doubt there are enough batteries around to store it all.

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

#288

Post by matheusmoreira »

dokem wrote: post #269
matheusmoreira wrote: post #22

Now this is something that could have an actual impact on carbon emissions. The sooner these fossil fuel companies get fined or taxed the better.

This could be the equivalent to price fixing, which is not productive and makes the whole system operate less efficiently, generally resulting in the opposite of what you want. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can just force it to go away by law.

> Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can just force it to go away by law.

Of course you can. See tobacco industry. My country made it illegal for them to advertise their product and to openly smoke in public spaces, imposed taxes to make it more expensive for consumers and also required them to add shocking images to the packs to remind people of the consequences. It was incredibly successful, very few young people smoke these days.

Sometimes you just gotta tell certain people to fuck off.

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

#289

Post by tito »

freshpots wrote: post #249
adamsvystun wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because it is not fiscally viable currently, does not mean that it cannot be in the future.

It will always be more expensive to remove a trace gas, economically and on an energy basis, than emitting it in the first place. We would need MORE renewables to remove the CO2 from the air. It is just ridiculous to spend more energy than what was generated from burning fuel to remove its CO2 from the air.

100%. A common misconception with carbon removal is that it's somehow an alternative for reducing emissions.

It's not. The planet needs to go carbon neutral full stop. We need tons of work to be done there. And....even when we do, there's still way too much carbon dioxide already on the air. That's where carbon removal comes in.

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

#290

Post by kokanator »

epistasis wrote: post #276
kokanator wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cars? Who cares, that's not what Shell sells. The only reason Shell truly exists is because all of those gas tanks. >And it's even possible to build cars that don't depend on carbon emissions, Sure, really only in the past 5-8 years. ( what about those Tesla stations ran by diesel generators? ) >Renewables are cheaper than natural gas right now, and by the time we need massive amounts of storage, renewables plus li…

Two apologies are in order 1) I disagree with a lot of your comment but don't really know how to proceed productively, and 2) for not providing any sources, as I've come to think of these things as common knowledge the past few years. A link dump is never convincing, but in case you find my thinking so strange that you're intrigued how I got to where I am, here's some of the key bits of info: 1) Ramez Naam's summary…

Just so it doesn't go without mentioning. Thank you for the references.
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