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.
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 can continue to use the same amount of energy while waiting for technology to improve and become greener. We have the choice between immediate, painful cuts to energy usage ($20/gal gas), or doing irreparable harm to our planet. We are choosing the latter.
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 now, etc. Every time that’s happened, the cost to industry has been far less than the naysayers predicted.
Most of the necessary changes are too big for individual people: we don’t have direct control over heavy polluting companies, a large fraction of our personal energy footprints are things like inefficient transportation and housing designs which are strongly encouraged if not required by public policy, etc. For businesses, there’s a prisoner’s dilemma where nobody wants to take on the cost of rearchitecting ahead of their competitors.
This is especially important with the fossil fuel companies who don’t just sell materials but actively work to prevent alternatives. Companies like Exxon have known about the risks since the 1970s, when their own scientists concluded global warming would happen, and their response was to lobby hard against efforts to use less CO2 and astroturf an entire network of faux-experts whose talking points are all over the news. Just as with the tobacco companies, suing is appropriate and effective.
That’s more than 10,000 times the world’s total energy use.
We can transition to solar and wind power.
But, as in this court case, they are greedy monopoly men advertising dangerous lies to the public to keep selling their product.
Seriously, such verdicts are completely pointless and achieve absolutely nothing.
The court can’t blame Shell for decisions that are made by politicians, especially in the energy sector.
If an industrial country wants to reduce emissions, it must build nuclear power plants unless it has the potential for large hydro or geothermal installations per capita.
For reference, compare the emissions of France and Germany and you realize the highest potential for decarbonization lies in the energy sector and nuclear is extremely efficient in achieving that - while renewables are not:
> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...
> https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-emissions-by-sector?t...
Don’t be silly. Energy is a national interest.
Secondly, one of the reasons for this verdict (see 2.5.9 and 4.4.20 in the judgement) is that Shell has known about the dangers of excessive CO₂ emissions since the 1980s. If this wasn’t about CO₂ but H₂S (a foul smelling and poisonous gas) they’d have to have stopped already.
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.