In a written summary of Tuesday’s ruling, the court said that Shell has a duty of care to limit its emissions, but it annulled the lower court’s decision because it was “unable to establish that the social standard of care entails an obligation for Shell to reduce its CO2 emissions by 45%, or some other percentage.
“There is currently insufficient consensus in climate science on a specific reduction percentage to which an individual company like Shell should adhere.”
We can't determine that cutting your emissions would do anything beneficial, even though something would be better than doing nothing, but we will let you do nothing instead. Jesus.
Shell could meet that obligation by ceasing to trade in the fuels it purchases from third parties. Other companies would then take over that trade.
So how would that be a reduction? How are you going to quantify THAT as a reduction? If we are going with unquantifiable reductions, why don't we go with direct emissions like originally planned.