While Australian politicians languish in a world blotched by climate change scepticism and fossil fuel love-ins, global oil and gas companies have been shaken. Three titans of oil fame – Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron – faced a range of decisions in May that promise to dramatically shape their future operations. The point is not negligible, given that this triarchy produced, between 1988 and 2015, 5% of total global scope 1 and 3 emissions.
Royal Dutch Shell was the first giant humbled by a Dutch court ruling that it was required to reduce total emissions by net 45% of 2019 levels by 2030. "The reduction obligation relates to the Shell group's entire energy portfolio and to the aggregate volume of all emissions (Scope 1 through to 3)." The case had been brought by a number of environmental groups, including Milieudefensie, claiming that RDS had "an obligation … to contribute to the prevention of dangerous climate change through the corporate policy it determines for the Shell Group." To not do so would result in a breach of human rights.