The Dutch NGO that won a historic court verdict in 2021 in a pioneering climate lawsuit against the oil major Shell announced on Tuesday that it is launching a new case against the company, with the core demand that Shell immediately stop investing in any new oil and gas fields.
“At a time in which the climate crisis continues to rage on because of the actions of companies such as Shell, every new oil or gas field is simply one too many. This is why we are once again taking our case to court,” Donald Pols, director of the Amsterdam-based organization Milieudefensie (Friends of the Netherlands), said in a statement.
In a letter addressed to Shell CEO Wael Sawan and its board chair Andrew Mackenzie, Milieudefensie says it believes that Shell is in breach of its duty of care obligation under Dutch law, due to the company’s “continued investment in new oil and gas fields and its inadequate climate policy for the period 2030 to 2050.”
The environmental organization argues that Shell has failed to change course to align its business activities with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, despite court decisions finding that the company has a legal responsibility to abide by the accord and reduce its entire supply chain emissions. Milieudefensie says it therefore has “no other option” but to take Shell to court once again.
The letter to Shell, called a notice of liability, is the first step in initiating a new legal action. Shell has four weeks to formally respond. In its notice, Milieudefensie says it intends to seek an order for Shell to cease developing new oil and gas fields and an order for Shell to set emissions reduction targets from 2030 to 2050 aligned with the Paris Agreement objective of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
Shell, formerly Royal Dutch Shell but now a British multinational headquartered in London, said that it is currently reviewing the letter from Milieudefensie and that a new lawsuit “has not been filed.”
“We agree urgent action is needed to tackle climate change. Shell is playing an important role in the energy transition by providing energy needed today, while helping to build the energy system of the future,” a Shell spokesperson said.
“As we have said many times, what Milieudefensie wants will not advance the energy transition,” Shell continued. “As the world continues to use oil and gas to heat homes and to transport goods and people, the transition needs collaboration between governments, businesses and consumers. By working together, with effective government policies, the world can move to low-carbon products and maintain a secure supply of affordable energy”.
In 2021, Milieudefensie won a groundbreaking court decision in its initial climate case brought against Shell, a company that is one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the world, and was at the time headquartered in the Netherlands. In a world-first verdict, the district court ruled that Shell has a legal obligation to mitigate dangerous warming and ordered the company to slash its entire supply chain emissions 45 percent by 2030.
Shell appealed that decision. It also then moved its headquarters to the United Kingdom and dropped “Royal Dutch” from its name. The company has furthermore continued to expand its fossil fuel production, deciding to invest in 32 new oil and gas fields since the 2021 district court ruling, according to Milieudefensie.
The Dutch appeals court issued its ruling in November 2024, ultimately deciding in favor of Shell and reversing the lower court verdict that had imposed the 45 percent emissions reduction obligation on the company. The appeals court did, however, confirm that Shell has a duty to reduce its CO2 emissions, though it did not assign a specific level of emissions reduction. The court recognized that “protection from dangerous climate change is a human right,” and stated that “companies like Shell thus have their own responsibility in achieving the targets of the Paris Agreement.”
The appeals court also found that oil and gas companies should be expected to “take into account the negative consequences” of expanding fossil fuel supply when making investment decisions, and that Shell’s planned investments in new oil and gas fields “may be at odds with this.”
That statement about new fields is now central to Milieudefensie’s latest lawsuit against the oil major.
“For us, this is reason to pick up the gauntlet and take Shell to court once again,” Pols said. “We simply cannot sit back and wait while Shell continues on its fossil path. Shell remains fully committed to new oil and gas fields, despite warnings from scientists that this will have disastrous consequences.”
New research published by Global Witness and Milieudefensie, based on data from Rystad Energy, finds that Shell currently has nearly 1,200 oil and gas extraction assets that it fully or partially owns, and that 700 of those are yet to be developed. If Shell were to immediately cease new oil and gas development, 5.2 billion metric tons of carbon emissions could be avoided, according to the analysis, which is equivalent to 36 times the annual CO2 emissions of the Netherlands.
The International Energy Agency has stated in reports in 2021 and in 2023 on pathways for achieving net zero emissions that there is no need for investments in new fossil fuel supply. Developing new fossil fuel assets and infrastructure “locks in fossil fuel dependency and greenhouse gas emissions for decades” and must be avoided, the UN Environment Program noted in a 2022 report. And estimates of CO2 emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure already exceed levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsuis, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“All leading institutional and scientific sources point in the same direction: there is no room for new oil and gas fields,” said Roger Cox, an attorney representing Milieudefensie. He said the new case against Shell is the first to take a systemic approach to challenging new oil and gas development, as opposed to challenging individual projects or permit decisions. “In this way, all of Shell’s new fields might be banned in one fell swoop.”
“The impact of this case could really be enormous,” Milieudefensie’s Sjoukje van Oosterhout said during a press conference on Tuesday. “Science is clear, crystal clear, and the ruling of the appeals court was also clear. Every new field is one too many. That’s why we have this case today.”
While Milieudefensie starts this new case against Shell, it is also continuing its initial case against the company. Earlier this year the organization announced it would be filing a final appeal to the Dutch Supreme Court, seeking an order holding Shell to a specified emissions reduction obligation. A decision from the Supreme Court could come later next year, Cox said. Additionally, Milieudefensie has brought a new climate lawsuit against the Netherlands’ largest bank, ING, demanding that it halve its carbon emissions by 2030 and cease financing companies that start new oil and gas projects.
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