Gregory Autin | November 14, 2024
Within seven days, Donald Trump's re-election on November 5 and Shell's victory in court on November 11 the fate of planet Earth was decided.
Trump plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as he takes office as the 47th President of the United States on Monday, January 20, 2025, as he did at the start of his first term in 2017. His team is working diligently on a withdrawal declaration.
The USA is also expected to withdraw from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) altogether. Moreover, Trump intends to undermine environmental protection in the USA, for example by lifting greenhouse gas limits for power plants and vehicles and allowing more drilling for oil and gas on federal land.
Despite the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement in 2017, all other countries have adhered to it. Even though oil and gas countries have always been critical of it, they have followed the UN's global climate policy – till now.
Great danger now looms that these countries will follow the example of the Trump administration. Trump's victory could be the needed pretext for these countries to backtrack on their commitments, whether in terms of reducing greenhouse gases or providing financial support to developing countries.
On November 11, 2024, an appeals court in The Hague overturned a 2021 ruling that required Shell to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030, including emissions from the oil and gas it produces. Shell has won and is now no longer obliged to make these threatened cuts to its business model.
Trump's re-election is expected to improve conditions for the global oil and gas industry. Furthermore, Shell's victory is a big win for Big Oil worldwide. These are indeed very good days and good signs for the climate deniers and the agents of destruction.
