Shell defeats landmark Dutch climate ruling to reduce emissions.

• On Tuesday, a Dutch court decided to dismiss a landmark climate lawsuit against Shell, which in 2021 had been ordered to significantly reduce its global carbon emissions.
• The outcome of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan marks a new development in a significant and groundbreaking legal case.
• In May 2021, the Hague district court ordered Shell to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030.

A Dutch court on Tuesday dismissed a landmark climate lawsuit against Shell, after the oil giant was ordered to drastically reduce its global carbon emissions in 2021.

The outcome of the precedent-setting case at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan marks a significant twist in the future of climate litigation.

The appeals court in The Hague ruled that although Shell must reduce its carbon emissions, it cannot determine the extent of these reductions. As a result, the case against Shell was entirely dismissed.

In May 2021, the Hague district court ordered Shell to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030.

The verdict, issued when Shell's headquarters was in The Hague, stated that the company was liable for all emissions throughout its supply chain, including those resulting from the products it sold - referred to as Scope 3 emissions.

For the first time in history, a company was legally required to align its policies with the Paris Agreement, an initiative aimed at preventing the worst effects of the climate crisis by limiting the average global temperature increase to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.

The decision was viewed as a turning point in the fight against climate change and led to a surge of legal actions against other oil and gas corporations.

Shell challenged the 2021 verdict and subsequently relocated its headquarters to the U.K., a move that was criticized for being driven in part by the courtroom loss. The Hague district court ruling only has legal validity in the Netherlands.

Earlier this year, the British oil major contended that the appeal lacked legal grounds.

Shell's lawyers argued that courts cannot impose demands on companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but only governments can do so, according to Reuters. Additionally, the company stated that the court ruling would force it to scale back its business without contributing to the fight against climate change.

In 2019, Milieudefensie, an environmental campaign group and the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, along with six other organizations and over 17,000 Dutch citizens, filed a case against Shell.

The largest contributor to the climate crisis is the burning of coal, oil, and gas, which accounts for over three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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