“The Climate Won Today”

I missed this last year, so that quote is over a year old now – but in May 2021, a Dutch court ordered Shell to cut it’s emissions by 45%, which is expected to interfere with it’s growth plans.

There’s a couple of reasons this is really big.

1. Shell are one of the largest polluters on the planet. Their contribution to global emissions is more than 1%, which is immense – so this should be a sizeable dent in future emissions
2. This is one of the first rulings against a giant polluter, and is expected to open the floodgates for more rulings against oil and similar companies

Nothing is a silver bullet, and it’ll be a small miracle if the ruling actually sticks – but if it does, it’s a massive step forward.

I haven’t been able to find an update to where this is at today, just lots of whistleblowing like this on Shell’s greenwashing tactics up until that ruling.

Since then though, most of what I can find is pledges of net zero by 2050… so I’m going to hang out here on the optimistic side for a while.