Posted by our planet climate and geopolitics
Blowing the carbon budget
Shell has successfully appealed a Dutch court’s judgement ordering a 45 per cent reduction of its carbon emissions by 2030. The original verdict, handed down in 2021 after Shell was sued by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, was a world-first in forcing a company to comply with the Paris Agreement. It also ruled new oil and gas developments were at odds with that target. Since then, research by NGOs found that Shell has approved at least 20 “new oil and gas extraction assets”. The appeals court said Shell still had a “responsibility” to combat climate change but that this doesn’t require a specific legal emissions target. Further appeals are likely. A new report found CO2 emissions reached a record high in 2024, up 0.8 per cent from 2023 despite the vast deployment of renewables. The study gives a 50:50 chance the carbon budget required to keep warming at 1.5C will be exceeded within six years.
Who Watches the Watchers? 