Episode 16 – One step ahead radio

Tune in this Friday! At 08:45 CET. One Step Ahead Radio! Between the lines in Azerbaijan, what is really happening, what is the real negotiation about, and it is not about climate! Interview with David Frydlinger Partner at Cirio law firm on importance of recent Shell verdict as well as on his new book “ Rules of the Game”. Shell is not obliged to dramatically reduce its planet-heating pollution by 2030, a Dutch appeals court ruled Tuesday, delivering a blow to efforts by environmental activists to push energy companies away from fossil fuels.The ruling — handed down just as annual climate talks take place at COP29 in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku — overturns a previous verdict that imposed steep carbon emissions reductions on the British oil and gas giant.

“We are pleased with the court’s decision, which we believe is the right one for the global energy transition, the Netherlands and our company,” Shell (SHEL) CEO Wael Sawan said in a statement. Shell had appealed the previous ruling, handed down in 2021, which ordered the company to slash its CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2019 levels. That included emissions from its own operations and from the energy products it sells.
Perhaps the Shell judgment linked to the COP can be a good introduction to the EU’s sustainability rules. Sustainability is being juridified, where the COP sets broad frameworks but that it will then go down to legislators and courts. The EU’s green deal is, after all, a conversion into law of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030. And having said that, you can say that the Shell judgment probably doesn’t matter that much – the playing field for all companies operating within the EU is being radically changed by the new legal rules. First through the reporting and then through mandatory requirements for conversion plans and to internalize their externalities in the value chains (with a penalty of potentially 5% of the annual turnover if you do not comply).