Three years ago, a court in The Hague backed a case by Friends of the Earth and 17,000 Dutch citizens requiring Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions significantly, in line with the Paris climate accords.
[…]
At the time, the 2021 ruling marked the first time a court had ordered a private company to align its workings with the Paris climate agreement, meaning that it was not sufficient for a company simply to comply with the law - it had to comply with global climate policy too.
[…]
The appeals court judge said that companies such as Shell were obliged to contribute to combating climate change based on the human right to protection against dangerous climate change.
However, the court said Shell was already working to reduce its emissions and the court could not establish whether it should make a 45% cut or another percentage, as there was no current accepted agreement in climate science on the required amount.
[…]
Environmental groups can now take their case against Shell to the Supreme Court - meaning that a final verdict in this far-reaching case may still be years away.
[Edit typo.]
When it comes to emissions from fossil fuels, we’d actually need to go beyond that 100% cut on new emissions, to allow removing historical emissions.