>"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?
>A court in The Hague will hear claims that Royal Dutch Shell has broken Dutch law by knowingly hampering the global phase-out of fossil fuels, in a case that could force the company to reduce its CO2 emissions.
Lawyers for a consortium led by Friends of the Earth Netherlands will argue on the first of four days of public hearings on Tuesday that Shell has been aware for decades of the damage it has inflicted and is acting unlawfully by expanding its fossil fuel operations. It is claimed the Anglo-Dutch company is breaching article 6:162 of the Dutch civil code and violating articles 2 and 8 of the European convention on human rights – the right to life and the right to family life – by causing a danger to others when alternative measures could be be taken.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/30/shell-in-co...
CO2 emissions have massive externalities and the more we force companies to bear those costs (be it via court judgements, carbon taxes, or a CO2 credits market) the more they will adjust their behaviour.
In this case, you need viable alternatives.
When one cartel dies, there isn't immediately a beneficial alternative.
Much like in this case - if Shell leaves, there is nothing that automatically means the new actor who fills that role will offer hydrogen, solar, etc. Least friction means the new actor will just be another petroleum company.
Viable alternatives need to be in place and/or ready to immediately deploy, I think was OP's point.
Additionally, these lawsuits raise the cost of being in the oil business compared to renewables. So the "new actor" is much more likely to be a renewable company, simply due to the fact that investors do not like regulatory uncertainty.
It is worth mentioning that the oil industry is now in support of a carbon tax. On paper, this sounds good. But what really is going on is that they realize that the writing is on the wall and that after decades of opposing a carbon tax, their best chance of survival moving forward is to try to move the conversation away from regulations and towards "free market solutions". But this is cynical for a few reasons, the primary one being that it is much easier to convince a future Republican administration to retroactively lower the carbon tax (under the guise of "job creation" or some other nonsense) than it would be to repeal strict environmental regulations. And the other primary reason is that a carbon tax essentially "kicks the can down the road", i.e. it doesn't actually solve climate change or prevent the fossil fuel industry from continuing to do business as usual. It just makes the price of fossil fuel based products a little higher. Where as a regulatory approach would likely significantly hinder the companies ability to operate and likely significantly reduce the size and scope of the fossil fuel market
This is important, because in the next few years we are likely going to see the oil companies try to get a "seat at the negotiating table" so to speak. So these lawsuits are important because it puts these companies on the defensive, and potentially cuts them off at the knees, hindering their ability to water down future climate change legislation.
Emission Trading Schemes put friction on another petroleum company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emission_Tradin...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_national_carbon_tradin...
Perhaps some people agree with the tool now, but wait until you see how they use it later. Eventually, you will get someone with the power who will use it for something you disagree with, in a big way.
I know corporations are people in the US but since when do they have a private live?
And i guess it's already illegal to harm others by polluting the environment in most juristictions.
If a company knowingly cause harm to third parties they must be sanctioned.
Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins.
Was it ok, from a legal or societal perspective, for these manufacturers to mount a disinformation program, in favor of their products, while knowingly causing direct harm to their customers? How does the fact that other companies will (potentially) step in and do the same thing change the situation?
This is like a trauma surgeon stabbing me and going "aren't you lucky I'm a surgeon?"
Article 6:162 Definition of a ‘tortious act’
- 1. A person who commits a tortious act (unlawful act) against another person that can be attributed to him, must repair the damage that this other person has suffered as a result thereof.
- 2. As a tortious act is regarded a violation of someone else’s right (entitlement) and an act or omission in violation of a duty imposed by law or of what according to unwritten law has to be regarded as proper social conduct, always as far as there was no justification for this behaviour.
- 3. A tortious act can be attributed to the tortfeasor [the person committing the tortious act] if it results from his fault or from a cause for which he is accountable by virtue of law or generally accepted principles (common opinion).
Looks like they are now called the scenarios group:
https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-futur...
Also ironically, one of the members of that group joined Shell in 1980 and is "a board member of the International Emissions Trading Association and was its Chairman from 2011-13. He is a board member of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in Washington, USA, and the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute in Melbourne, Australia."
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 are doing harm, 2) lying about that research and what they know, 3) conducting public misinformation campaigns to deceive people, and 4) deceptively influencing government policy to allow their continued harm.
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.
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.
Had CO2 emissions been taken seriously — and given that successful predictions of the problem go back over a century we had plenty of time to plan — we could have bought additional decades to work on alternatives by continuing improvements in efficiency. Procrastinating means that we'll see more disruptive changes and worse climate impacts.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/14/car-tyre...
I don't see how this is controversial at all. If you provide something that causes damages and make a profit, why shouldn't you also be liable for the economic harms you incur in addition to the economic gains you enjoy?
Nobody is forcing these companies to continue doing what they are doing, they do it voluntarily, for money.
Should they punish anyone who initiated a disinformation campaign? absolutely!
But blaming them because they sold a product happily used to improved our quality of life seems silly.
"Blame" isn't really the important part here, the important part is enacting corrective action for harm done.
Even if they hadn't conducted a misinformation campaign, Shell profited by causing great harm. As a purely financial entity, without introducing any morality or ethics, they owe the financial damages they have incurred, and perhaps their customers too. Though it's somewhat rare for a customer to be responsible for a product's negative effects, especially when the company profitting off the sale vociferously denies that the harm exists!
But it's important to note that Shell isn't even being asked to pay back the debt they have incurred. They are simply asked to reduce the harm they are enacting, with nine years to change.
This is such a trivial ask in light of the economic harm that Shell has wrought upon their customers, and more importantly, the entire world.
They sell off half their assets to smaller oil companies. But you still have the same number of wells pumping oil/gas.
I just don't see how this helps anyone, it's a silly PR win.
Shell didn't wrought any economic harm on their customers. We as a society have failed to regulate the consumption of oil/gas (as well as all other sources of CO2 emission), this is not directly the oil/gas companies fault, we're just using them as a scape goat. We might as well blame car companies, construction companies, power companies, steel manufacturing companies who are all just as if not more responsible for CO2 emissions.
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.
But that has little to do with whether or not this case will have any impact on oil and gas extraction. It's just a PR move, which won't affect the number of barrels pumped out of the ground each year.
This will have big impacts for financing future fossil fuel extraction, because all the financiers see what's happened here.
This has major implications, there's no PR anywhere near this.
I call bullshit. There are only two choices withing the control of an individual:
1 - get a green energy supplier, if one is avaliable and you can afford it
2 - stop eating meat
That's it. Majority of emissions are from industry and transport, we get no choice in that matter and the only way I can reduce them individually is to live in a cave.
Where does the individual bear responsibility in any of this?
Instead the public tends to focus on the huge evil corporation who struggles to even keep up with our demand for the very product we are damning them for.
There are 1.4 Billion cars on the road.[0] Somehow that is Shells fault? Really?
I'm not saying Shell has not committed any sins but we will need to do something about the 1.4 Billion cars before anything changes. All of those cars need to be fed. Someone will feed them.
[0] https://www.carsguide.com.au/car-advice/how-many-cars-are-th...
But lets go with that argument - i am 100% responsible for my CO2. If I am choosing a washing machine, are they labelled with amount of CO2 emitted in production of each? If the company lies to me about this, does anyone go to jail?
Are you aware that carbon credits market ia one big fraud, with "overestimates" averaging 50x?
Carbon credits were a scam from the beginning. ( The same guy promoting them pointed to the market he owned as the solution, Al Gore ) Don't get me wrong they have huge potential but are really a false market at the moment. More like protection money or wealth transfer.
> If I am choosing a washing machine, are they labelled with amount of CO2 emitted in production of each? If the company lies to me about this, does anyone go to jail?
I think arguments like this let the individual again place blame on the manufacturer and not that they are an uneducated consumer ( caveat emptor ). Of course if you purchase a washing machine you must understand it took carbon for the entire production of the machine starting with the excavator that pulled the iron out of the ground to the truck that delivered it. The one that takes 'less' carbon is easy, fix the old one, or don't buy one and go the the coin laundry. But blaming the manufacturer who is currently operating within the governing authorities guidelines is disingenuous.
Thank you for providing exibit A - blaming the consumer for being uneducated and yet getting it all wrong yourself -> Your frequent trips to the laundry will produce much more carbon than you could ever save by not buying an appliance that serves for 10 years on average.
"But blaming the manufacturer who is currently operating within the governing authorities guidelines is disingenuous."
But blamind the consumer who is currently operating withing governing authorities guidelines is fair game. HN morality at it's finest, when corporations have more rights than people do.
Not if you go to the laundry next to the grocery. Why would you spend more money on fuel when you could combine a trip?
> But blamind the consumer who is currently operating withing governing authorities guidelines is fair game.
The consumer is the one that influences the market and has the power to remove or advance politicians. If there is no market to fill the producer will no longer produce. Do you think manufacturing moved to China because the corporations liked China and the logistics or because people would actually buy cheeper products made in China?
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.
Also, a large populace is easily manipulated and democracy is not that direct for the average person to have a proper say. And “the market will solve it” mentality never ever worked, not even thought to work by Adam Smith generally — only in very regulated markets.
Of course you are perpetuators. Where did your computer come from? For most it came from the largest polluter on the planet by nearly double.[0] Most likely your shoes came from there as well. The point is the consumer is buying the stuff that basically outsources the pollution.
Creating strong environmental regulation locally but allowing products from polluting countries just displaces the problem ( and jobs btw ). Tariffs solve this, quickly. I think this is where your democracy comment comes in. The mob doesn't want to pay more so they fight this type of legislation or executive order and thus are perpetuators of the problem.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/270499/co2-emissions-in-...
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.
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 lithium ion batteries will be cheaper than combined cycle gas turbines.
Every time, I mean every time this threshold is crossed the cost of fossil fuels plummets way below the threshold. 1.4 billion cars are on the road a little over 1 million are electric in any way. I don't see how this is the gas companies fault.
They have provided a product to 1.4 billion gas tanks ( a lot of those weekly ) on a consistently reliable basis. If there is ever a threat of a shortage people start lining up for miles to buy the product Shell is 'forcing' them to buy? Perhaps we need to hold the gas tank companies responsible for making a product that holds fuel.
This is a culture and economy problem not the fault of a fuel company. Our entire economy is dependent on fossil fuel.
PS. It would be nice if you provided at least on reference for the last two paragraphs of your post. Way too many claims with no resources.
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 of solar/storage costs (2020) -- He's a science fiction author, but has really brought together the best resources. Academic and industry energy models use old cost estimates for renewables and it gets them into huge problems. Naam's estimates have been far too conservative, but at least they've been less conservative than the pros' estimates: https://rameznaam.com/2020/05/14/solars-future-is-insanely-c...
2) Lazard's levelized cost of storage/energy (2020, comes out annually) -- best free estimates of costs, IMHO. (note that the LCOE doesn't take into account the price of dispatchability, but storage fixes that)
3) RMI's analysis of stranded natural gas plants (2019) -- a bit dated, but shocked people when it came out, and even most utility IRPs don't consider this possibility yet, which means utility customers are going to get bilked for billions of dollars https://rmi.org/a-bridge-backward-the-risky-economics-of-new...
4) RMI's analysis of low NG deployments and high storage, solar, and wind deployments in open markets (2020) -- a follow on to the prior year's analysis, documenting that the open market realizes that new natural gas will likely become a stranded asset. Regulated utilities generally bear no risk of competition, so only regulatory bodies can reign in the bad economic decisions of utilities that are still deploying natural gas. https://rmi.org/clean-energy-is-canceling-gas-plants/
5) The IEA's recently released global energy transition pathway to keep to 1.5C of warming (2021) -- The IEA has been hopelessly wrong about our energy path, and they are here too, IMHO, estimating absolutely ridiculous hydrogen production capacity by 2030 (3TW!), and far too low renewables and storage. But even the IEA is now plotting a pathway with a very quick transition away from any fossil fuel that doesn't have it's CO2 emissions captured https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/all-fossil-fuel-...
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 accompanying book of precedents (even in civil law systems), they would not know what is and isn't legal.
It is pretty interesting that there's no fine or punishment. A recognition-not-recognition that this is a pivot point. Hopefully, antitrust courts will adopt the same approach. Fining Google or Amazon has been a bust.
Laws don't come from gods, not even the gods or pure reason. The come from people. Courts, parliaments, polities, regulators, etc.
There is a huge body of historical law in the western world that comes from the decree of the king, literally a god.
Also, I think the prevalent medieval european tradition was more focused on the "divine right of kings" to rule than the divinity of kings per se.
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.'
I get the point that at some point you just need to pick a party to pay for an externality.
Blacklisting Netherlands seems in the realm of possibility. As in, no oil or oil based products being allowed into country.
The Netherlands is part of the European Union, whose members can trade freely between each other. Trying to cut off oil from the Netherlands would also require cutting it off to France, Germany, Spain, etc.
Who would enforce such a silly action in any case? Presumably the government and army of the Netherlands wouldn't want to cut itself off; in which case, what would prevent anyone with lorries, boats or planes from bringing in "oil or oil based products" (at a hefty markup)?
The proper response would be to rejoice that they finally got what they wanted and lobby for the same judgement for their competitors, then get on with it and finally reduce their emissions.
Because they didn't get what they want.
Imagine you make widgets and you pay your employees $5/hr. You want to pay your employees $10/hr but you can't because your widgets would then be too expensive, you'd be driven out of business and your employees would have to get jobs elsewhere for $5/hr. But if a the government enforced a $10/hr minimum wage then you can pay your employees $10/hr, you don't go out of business, and your employees can keep their jobs.
It's a collective action problem and the government is uniquely good at solving them while businesses are uniquely bad.
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...