Netherlands:the ruling requiring Shell to reduce emissions was annulled

Oil giant Shell has won its appeal against a landmark climate ruling issued by a Dutch court in 2021.The court, following accusations made by the NGO Milieudefensie, had ordered the fossil multinational to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.However, the appeals court ruled that although Shell has a “special responsibility” to reduce its emissions as a major oil company, such reduction cannot be imposed as a specific legal target.

Three years ago, a verdict issued by a court in The Hague, the company's registered office, had sanctioned how Shell's sustainability policy - which had established a 20% reduction in emissions by 2030 - was not very "concrete".For this reason the company was required to comply with the provisions of the 2015 Paris Agreement, imposing a 45% reduction compared to 2019 emissions by 2030.The decision came following a complaint from the environmentalist association Milieudefensie, member of the international Friends of Earth network, together with 17 thousand Dutch citizens.According to the charges, Shell's extraction and processing of fossil fuels had caused extensive environmental damage.Once issued, the sentence was considered to be historical significance because it was the first time that a courtroom established the obligation for a company to comply with the Paris Agreement.

The sentence issued yesterday completely overturns the previous one.The judges have in fact established that, although Shell is responsible for reducing CO2 emissions, this does not constitute a legal obligation for the company.The decision constitutes a «setback for us, for the climate movement and for millions of people around the world,” he declared the director of Milieudefensie, Donald Pols, who nevertheless promises not to give up.For its part, Shell has welcomed the judges' decision underlining that "a court ruling would not reduce overall customer demand for products such as petrol and diesel", which customers would find "elsewhere", and shifted the responsibility onto governments national governments, hoping for the launch of "intelligent policies" to achieve the objective of canceling net emissions.

[by Valeria Casolaro]