A Dutch ruling against Royal Dutch Shell Plc determines whether it has a legal responsibility for climate change, in a case that is being watched worldwide by Big Oil executives.
A panel of judges in a lower court in The Hague will rule on Wednesday in a case that is also being followed by environmental campaigns. Although the ruling is only legally binding in the Netherlands, it should be investigated as a new area of law and may be considered by judges elsewhere.
Shell has been sued by Milieudefensie, the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth, whose lawyers spent two weeks in court earlier this year, arguing that the company violates human rights by extracting fossil fuels and the purpose of the Paris Agreement to curb temperature rises. to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Oil companies around the world have a so-called duty of care that they must respect in the countries in which they operate to avoid oil spills and other non-intentional acts of pollution. A ruling holding them accountable for greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels they extracted would be a major victory for environmental campaigns, which have increasingly turned to the courts to bring about reforms. According to the climatecasechart.com database, there were eventually nearly 1,700 climate change cases targeted at governments and companies.
“This is without a doubt a very important issue,” said Eric De Brabandere, a professor of international dispute resolution at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “Not only because it directly targets such a large oil company, but also indirectly attacks the entire oil extraction industry.”
Shell acknowledges that it plays a role in tackling climate change and says it does, but that it can be better achieved through cooperation rather than through court proceedings.
“Addressing climate change is a huge, huge challenge and requires a collaborative and global approach,” Shell’s legal director Donny Ching said at the company’s annual meeting last week. “I do not think lawsuits will help us.”
17,000 co-plaintiffs
Environmental Defense has compiled 17,000 people to report as co-plaintiffs in his complaint, which he says is “the first time a court has been asked to order a polluting transnational corporation to spend less CO2 on the climate. save.”
“Judges around the world are confronted with climate change issues and are looking for other judges’ points of reference,” said Michael Burger, executive director of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Recent decisions have not gone the way of Shell in both countries in which the Anglo-Dutch company is listed. Thousands of Nigerians could sue Shell in London over environmental damage in the West African country, the UK’s highest court said in February. A month earlier, a Dutch court had ordered Shell’s Nigerian unit to compensate locals 13 years ago for oil spills in a case also brought by Environmental Defense.
New York City suffered a setback last month in its effort to help Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc, and other energy companies cover the public costs of tackling climate change, as a federal appeals court ruled the global problem rather political than legal action.