How Shell Is Using Nature-Based Solutions To Continue Its Fossil Fuel Agenda

Milieudefensie

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Abstract: The District Court of The Hague ordered Shell to reduce its net emissions by 45% by 2030. In its own Powering Progress strategy,Shell commits to becoming a â??net-zeroâ?? emission company by 2050. What appears like a big commitment to decarbonize is undermined by the three-letter word â??netâ?. A commitment to â??net-zeroâ?? means that Shell can continue to make a profit from burning oil,gas and coal and claim that this transfer of fossil carbon from underground deposits into the atmosphere will not contribute to global warming. A concept called â??carbon offsettingâ?? makes this illusion possible: Shell calculates the amount of fossil carbon released into the atmosphere as CO2 from (a part of) its operations and buys an equivalent number of so-called carbon credits from projects elsewhere that somehow avoided emissions or took CO2 out of the atmosphere. Central to the compensation claim is the requirement that these offset projects can be shown to have prevented emissions that would otherwise have been released,for example because electricity would have been produced from a coal-fired power plant had it not been for the offset project building a wind park. Or protecting forests that were at risk of being destroyed. Or planting trees that would not have been planted otherwise,and therefore CO2 would not have been removed from the atmosphere.