upstreamonline.com

Shell’s Niger Delta oil-spill case to be heard in UK courts

22 July 2021 8:13 GMT UPDATED  22 July 2021 8:13 GMT

Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell has run out of time to appeal a UK court ruling earlier this year which found that a five-year-old case on environmental pollution in the Niger Delta should be heard in the UK and not Nigeria. In February, Shell’s lawyers failed to convince the High Court in London over the jurisdictional argument that the trial would be better decided in Nigeria, although Shell was given leave to appeal but declined to do so. read more

OILPRICE.com

Shell To Appeal Landmark Court Ruling

By City A.M – Jul 21, 2021, 11:30 AM CDT

Shell has today confirmed that it will appeal against a landmark court ruling requiring the oil giant to cut emissions faster than it had planned to.

The Anglo-Dutch firm said that it had been unfairly singled out by the ruling, which it said was not an “effective” way of tackling climate change.

In May, a court in the Hague ordered the firm to slash greenhouse emissions by 45 percent from 2019 levels by 2030. read more

After two decades of seeking justice, the District Court of the Hague ruled in May 2019 that the case could be heard in The Netherlands. In the ongoing case, the Court is assessing the role that Shell played in the ‘Ogoni Nine’ – among them my husband – being sentenced to death and executed.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Shell to Appeal Dutch Court Ruling on Emissions Cuts

By Sarah McFarlane: July 20, 2021 8:24 am ET

Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Tuesday confirmed it would appeal against a Dutch court ruling calling for the oil major to reduce its carbon emissions at a faster pace, saying it was being unfairly singled out.

The energy giant said it was working toward increasing the scale and speed of its plans for cutting carbon emissions, but that the court ruling didn’t take into account the commitments it set out earlier this year to shift away from fossil fuels toward lower-carbon energy due to the timing of the hearings. read more

RTTNews

Shell To Appeal Court Ruling In Netherlands Climate Case

(RTTNews) – Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS-B, RDSB.L, RDSA.L, RDS-A) confirmed that it will appeal a ruling issued by the District Court in The Hague, in May 2021, that Shell must reduce its global net carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.

Shell said it agrees urgent action is needed and it will accelerate its transition to net zero emissions by 2050. But it will appeal because a court judgment, against a single company, is not effective. Climate change is a challenge that requires both urgent action and an approach that is global, collaborative and encourages coordination between all parties. read more

EnergyVoice

Shell abandons push for oil spill case to be heard in Nigeria

Shell’s legal team declined to return to England’s High Court with arguments that the five-year-old case would be better heard in Nigeria, according to the parties in the case, conceding that the Nigerian subsidiary will now be joined to claims made in England against the parent company.

The UK Supreme Court said in a landmark ruling in February that Shell’s parent company could be sued in English courts for the actions of its Nigerian subsidiary. The court, however, left the door open for Shell to argue that it was more appropriate to leave any action against the local unit to Nigerian courts. By including the subsidiary in the UK proceedings, more documents about Shell’s work in Nigeria are likely to be made public. read more

CNN OPINION

Climate change is about greed. It’s time for big oil to pay us back

Opinion by Jeffrey Sachs: July 8, 2021

Recently, a Dutch court in The Hague ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash the emissions from its products. The European Union as a whole is moving forward with a European Green Deal to decarbonize the EU energy system no later than 2050. In line with the European plans, Volkswagen recently declared its intention to phase out ICEs in Europe by 2035.

As with the drug companies that pushed addictive painkillers on Americans and tobacco companies that pushed killer cigarettes, it’s time for the oil industry to pay heavy penalties on ill-gotten gains, the flip side of which are the death and destruction caused by extreme climate events. read more

CNBC

Scientists hired by oil giants predicted climate crisis 60 years ago: Report

By CNBCTV18.com |Jul 05, 2021, 05:53 PM IST (Published)

More than 26 lawsuits have been filed in the US against oil companies for their role in climate change. The internal documents of these companies contain research data collected by their teams regarding the effect of rising global temperatures.

These researchers had accurately predicted rising global temperatures. Some of these researchers have testified that fossil fuel companies, petroleum giants like Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP among others, knew about the role of burning fossil fuels in global warming more than 60 years ago. read more

THE STRAITS TIMES

Jail for two former Shell employees linked to case of stolen gas oil worth over $200m

SINGAPORE – Two former Shell Eastern Petroleum employees linked to a case involving more than 300,000 tonnes of stolen gas oil worth over $200 million – the largest ever amount for such a case in Singapore – were jailed on Monday (July 5).

The oil heist took place at Shell Pulau Bukom, the company’s largest petrochemical production and export centre in the Asia-Pacific region. read more

FRANCE 24

Polluted by the oil industry: Life in Nigeria’s Ogoniland

By: Moïse GOMIS|Emmanuelle SODJI: 02 July 2021

The Ogoniland area of southern Nigeria is one of the most polluted places on Earth. The crops are burnt to a cinder, ash and tar smother the land and the wells are polluted with oil, making the water totally undrinkable. Entire communities have suffered as their way of life has been destroyed by the oil industry. Our reporters take you to Ogoniland, in the Niger Delta, where pollution has become the norm. read more

The New York Times

Lawmaker Threatens to Subpoena Exxon After Secret Video

The chairman of a powerful House subcommittee said he is seeking answers from Exxon and other oil and gas giants over their role in spreading disinformation on climate change.

By Hiroko Tabuchi and Lisa Friedman

The chairman of a House subcommittee is demanding that executives of Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell, Chevron and other major oil and gas companies testify before Congress about the industry’s decades-long effort to wage disinformation campaigns around climate change. read more

The Guardian

Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price

Chris McGreal: Wed 30 Jun 2021 08.00 BST

The environmentalist Bill McKibben once characterized the fossil fuel industry’s behavior as “the most consequential cover-up in US history”. And now for the first time in decades, the lawsuits chart a path toward public accountability that climate activists say has the potential to rival big tobacco’s downfall after it concealed the real dangers of smoking.

“We are at an inflection point,” said Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment. read more

independent.co.uk

Clean energy is the future – so why are some investors still supporting the dying fossil fuel economy?

Institutional forces continue to prop up the fossil fuel economy, while both the market and public opinion are leaving it behind. This is as foolish as it is dangerous, writes Tom Steyer: 29 June 2021

As far as climate action goes, May 2021 was a big deal. The trend towards clean energy and away from fossil fuels exploded. Exxon Mobil, the biggest oil company in America, lost a proxy battle and now three climate activists will sit on its board. A Dutch court set new and stringent rules for energy companies, including Royal Dutch Shell. The German Supreme Court ordered all of Germany to step up its climate game significantly by 2030. read more

Oil and gas firms could face fresh legal action by activist groups as investors demand stock market-listed firms align with Paris climate goals

By HARRIET DENNYS, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 21:50, 26 June 2021 | UPDATED: 22:45, 26 June 2021

Major oil and gas firms including BP and Shell could face fresh legal action by activist groups as investors demand stock market-listed firms align with Paris climate goals.

The wave of potential lawsuits could also target Chevron and Exxon and other heavy industry majors such as Ineos, the petrochemicals giant controlled by billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, and biomass power firm Drax. read more

THE NATIONAL LAW REVIEW

The Dutch Decision on Shell’s Carbon Emissions – Should U.S. Companies Be Worried?

On May 26, 2021, a Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell Plc (“Shell”) to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% (from 2019 levels) by 2030. Shell had previously pledged to reduce its emissions by 20% (from 2016 levels) by 2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The Dutch court held that this commitment was insufficient based on the “very serious threat” that Shell’s carbon emissions pose to Dutch residents. read more

CNBC

Big Oil’s increasing number of climate lawsuits draws parallels to Big Tobacco

PUBLISHED FRI, JUN 25 20211:12 AM EDT: Sam Meredith
@SMEREDITH19

• The prospect of a rising tide of climate litigation cases against heavy emitting businesses comes shortly after a landmark courtroom defeat for Royal Dutch Shell.
• Since the turn of the century, more than 2,000 climate litigation cases were found to have been filed in a trend that is widely expected to have global implications for carbon-intensive companies.
• Analysts believe this is merely scratching the surface of what is to be expected in the future — drawing parallels to the so-called tobacco trials of the 1950s and 1960s.

LONDON — Big Oil is likely to face an exponential increase in climate lawsuits over the coming years, a trend that analysts say is reminiscent of activists turning to the courts to take on the tobacco industry.

The prospect of a rising tide of climate litigation cases against heavy emitting businesses comes shortly after a landmark courtroom defeat for Royal Dutch Shell. read more