Climate protection: Environmental groups have sued the Shell oil company

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According to environmental groups, the Shell oil company is jointly responsible for the climate crisis.

Photo: Mike Kemp / In Pictures / Getty Images

A Dutch court in The Hague has delivered a historic verdict in the climate protection trial against the oil giant Shell.

Shell, the court found, is responsible for CO₂ emissions, which contribute to global warming and have dangerous consequences for the Dutch population, the inhabitants of the Wadden Sea area and the rights of the people in the Netherlands.

A judge said: "Shell can and must reduce its CO₂ emissions." And is now legally obliged to do so: by 2030, the group must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent.

A groundbreaking decision

Similar to the successful lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court against the federal government's current climate policy, the procedure is considered to be groundbreaking.

After all, it is about the role of multinational corporations in the fight against the climate crisis.

In this specific case, environmentalists wanted to use their lawsuit to force Shell to comply with the climate protection goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

Future harm should be averted.

To this end, Europe's largest oil company should be obliged to drastically reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Shell is headquartered in The Hague.

The trial took place in the local district court.

17,300 citizens support the lawsuit

In 2019, seven environmental groups filed the lawsuit, including Milieudefensie and Greenpeace.

The associations were supported by 17,300 Dutch citizens who appeared as joint plaintiffs.

Milieudefensie argued that Shell is the country's largest pollutant - the oil company emits nine times as much CO₂ as the rest of the Netherlands.

By continuing to invest in the extraction of fossil fuels, Shell is endangering the right to life and thus violating the European Convention on Human Rights.

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In addition, the people in charge at Shell have known about the threat of climate change for decades: Shell had already received an internal report in 1988 in which the potentially catastrophic consequences of the greenhouse effect were described - with no consequences.

"Inappropriate and without legal basis," says Shell

The company itself, which generates billions in sales with fossil fuels, described the lawsuits as "inappropriate and without a legal basis".

Shell has already committed to reducing the carbon footprint of its products - by 30 percent by 2035.

However, the environmental groups wanted to legally obtain that Shell reduce its emissions and those of its customers by 45 percent by 2030.

The court now agreed with them.

The number of lawsuits for more climate protection continues to increase worldwide: around 1,700 proceedings are currently in progress, several of them against energy companies.

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