Lawyers for world-famous oil monopoly Shell will fight in The Hague to overturn a landmark order for the company to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
According to the Financial Times (FT), lawyers from the British firm Clifford Chance will argue that the order, which forces the oil and gas company to cut its emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 compared to 2019, has no legal basis and exceeds the jurisdiction of the judiciary.
The historic victory by Milieudefensie, the Dutch wing of the NGO Friends of the Earth, in The Hague District Court in May 2021 led to a series of similar cases brought by non-profit groups against multinational companies, including most recently BNP Paribas and TotalEnergies.
“This was the mother of all climate lawsuits against companies,” Klaas Hendrik Eller, assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Transformative Private Law, told the FT. It fuelled the idea that the courts are an important actor in the fight against climate change,” Klaas Hendrik Eller, assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam’s Centre for Transformative Private Law, told the FT.
Its director, Donald Pols, told the FT that last year’s record-breaking global temperatures, with floods, heatwaves and crop failures in parts of the world since the original ruling, could help Milieudefensie re-defend its case.
“Knowing that this is partly a result of Shell’s oil and gas pumping and flaring activities … that is indeed favourable for our argument in the Dutch court,” Pols said.
Shell has recently weakened some of its climate targets to accommodate its plans to continue growing its giant gas business, scrapping its 2035 emissions reduction target while maintaining its net-zero target by 2050. The company is now aiming for a 15-20 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by 2030.
Both sides will present their arguments between 2 and 12 April, with a decision expected in the second half of this year.
