Shell Plc is set for a showdown with climate activists urging top Dutch judges to impose legally enforceable emissions cuts on Europe’s biggest oil and gas company to keep its net zero 2050 target on track.
The Netherlands branch of Friends of the Earth, Milieudefensie, will try to convince the country’s Supreme Court that the London-based company has a duty to reduce its CO2 emissions to 45% below 2019 levels by 2030.
Shell disagrees, arguing that lawmakers, and not courts, should have the power to set limits on a company.
Friday’s hearing follows a long legal battle testing whether the judiciary has a mandate to deliver climate justice to individual companies, a question that has recently faced mounting scrutiny.
RWE AG, one of Europe’s top carbon emitters, last year won dismissal of a case brought by a Peruvian farmer seeking to hold the German utility liable for climate impacts.
Meanwhile
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