Who’s really guilty, big oil the doctor, farmer or fisherman?

A collection of climate stories mostly

Courtesy of PA

Patrick Hart, 37, a doctor from Bristol was charged with criminal damage and aggravated trespass this week, after a pitch invasion at the Saracens - Sale rugby union final at Twickenham last weekend. 

His crime was to disrupt the match with a co-conspirator, brandishing an orange flair and dropping orange coloured cornflour onto the pitch. Brave and dumb when you consider the size and speed of the players they were intentionally disrupting. Technically, the charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, time served will depend on the costs incurred to remove the orange stain from the hallowed Twickenham turf. 

The legal process is already underway. The case has been heard in a magistrate’s court and has been referred to Kingston crown court for a hearing on 26 June.

Hart, a member of Just Stop Oil had this to say, “we are looking at absolute hell on earth, which awaits us much sooner than people realise, if we do not end all new fossil fuel projects immediately”.

The UK government isn’t listening. Back in 2022, a new round of licensing was opened for North Sea oil and gas exploration. 900 locations are involved and as many as 100 licences set to be awarded. This is in stark contrast to Denmark, which has brought an immediate end to new exploration in their area of the North Sea and a target of 2050 to stop all fossil fuel extraction. 

Courtesy of wimp.com

Those smart Danes have switched their entire focus to a green energy future. They are already planning two huge offshore wind energy islands which are expected to generate more electricity than Danish households can consume. Eventually, they will become a net exporter of electricity. 

Courtesy of AP Photo/Sunday Alamba

Another interesting court case, about hell on earth, is also going to happen in the UK at some point, although a date is yet to be set. 

It’s been brought by the 14,000 Nigerians who live in Bille and Ogale in the Niger delta, represented by the London law firm, Leigh Day, who filed a claim in 2015. It has taken over 7 years and a UK Supreme Court ruling to agree that UK courts can adjudicate over incidents in Nigeria against Royal Dutch Shell.

The Ogale community are farmers who have been impacted with multiple spills starting in the 1980s. While some farmers can no longer farm, the bigger issue is the contamination of the drinking water. A report in 2011 found that the levels of hydrocarbon contamination was 900 times World Health Organisation guidelines. Shell provided clean water for several years after the report, but this has since stopped. Now the community is forced to get their water from hand-dug wells or boreholes. The water coming out of the taps continues to stink of oil and hydrocarbons.

The Bille community are fisher folk, who live on a group of small islands. Their claim is in relation to spills between 2011-2013 which resulted in the devastation of the mangrove forests. The fishing and their livelihood died with the mangroves and the 50 plus spills. As a result, they are no longer able to sustain their families.

Shell and their army of lawyers are past masters at deflection, obfuscation and basic time wasting. International climate law is a swiss cheese of ambiguities, which can be exploited for the benefit of profit. If a litigation can’t be defeated completely, the next best thing is to prolong and delay. By continuing to drill and destroy, the profits made in the meantime more than offset any settlement in court.

Shell is familiar with litigation in the Niger Delta and how best to deal with it. The case of Goi, brought by 4 plaintiffs from the town in 2004 took 13 years before the Hague Court of Appeal agreed with them and the trial was heard in the Netherlands. By that time, three of the four had died and their hometown of Goi had been evacuated. A rusty sign is all that is left warning anyone who cares to read it that the town is a contaminated area.

Actions speak louder than words. Shell’s raison d’être is to continue their fossil fuel business for as long as possible with no plans to phase out anything without a fight. 

In 2021, Friends of the Earth’s Dutch brand, Milieudefensie, won a landmark case against Shell. They were ordered to reduce its global emissions by 45% by 2030, in comparison to 2019 levels. Shell is of course appealing and there is no evidence to suggest any form of compliance with the ruling.

Even their most recent annual report earlier this year is a fabrication. 

They stated that 12% of capital expenditure was invested into a division called Renewables and Energy Solutions in 2021. Global Witness, an activist group argues that only a measly 1.5% of their expenditure is being used for genuine renewables, the rest is allocated to gas projects, which is of course, another fossil fuel.

The one issue which might finally force Shell to repent or at least change is legal precedent. Climate cases have doubled since 2015, a quarter of the 2,000 filings are since 2020. The UK Supreme’s Court decision recently was a direct result of the decision that had previously been taken in the Hague.

The law is also changing. The United Nations is attempting to create a suite of legally binding, extraterritorial obligations for multinationals which member states can enforce. Shell, which is domiciled in a UN member state, would be legally bound to comply with international human rights law and no longer able to argue about the country and court being unrecognised for their particular set of circumstances.

Shell’s own internal report of 1988, a decade after Exxon’s, concluded that the parts per million of CO2 would double preindustrial levels by 2030. Their assessment went on to forecast a one metre sea level rise at least, which could grow to as much as 5-6 metres if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt. 

They warned of the disappearance of specific ecosystems and habitat destruction, predicted an increase in runoff and destructive flooding. New sources of freshwater would be required. Shell concluded, the changes may be the greatest in recorded history, a prediction they made over 30 years ago.

Why does the machine appear to continue unabated? Why don’t they take some responsibility for their actions, instead of continuing to cause misery and destruction?

Perhaps a better question is why don’t they reinvent themselves before it’s too late for all of us?