"Ruling will only hold in the Netherlands".
I can see Shell just exiting the Netherlands rather than lowering emissions by 45% globally.
Another weak, symbolic ruling from a European court.
The same could be attempted across the whole world where judicial branch holds actual power.
https://www.urgenda.nl/en/themas/climate-case/global-climate...
https://peoplesclimatecase.caneurope.org/
http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-climate-change-litigation...
You can downvote me all you want. You can "hope" to do whatever in your crusade. You can tell me all about what "could" happen if the world weren't the way is. But it's not that way. It's the other way.
Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) manages over $2 trillions
The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) with over €23 trillion in assets under management
Go against states like Netherlands, states unions like European Union, and institutional investors managing tens of trillions worth of assets at your own peril.
And the pressure will only keep increasing as the old generations die and the new take power.
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 will their extraction of fossil fuels. This is happening far more quickly than most people realize, since most people aren't following that side of financial markets. Everything is shifting day by day.
But this won’t materially affect climate change. This won’t even materially affect RDS. It will materially affect the Dutch people who have come to depend on the economic benefits of having RDS headquartered in their town/country.
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.
Once we have 100 million refugees because half of bangladesh is underwater, it will get urgly and all the fuckerage will come back to haunt them.
There's nothing that Shell offers that is unique, and we have all sorts of other options. (I say "we" even though I'm not in the Netherlands, but we in the US are just as independent as NL is.)
I know we still enjoy our chocolate icecream with slave labour from African children and consume our tech gadgets built on the blood of an Uyghur genocide - but hey you got to start somewhere!