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Shell might need to halve emissions by 2030: A Dutch court is set to issue a ruling today on whether to uphold a 2021 order mandating the company to reduce its absolute carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels, Reuters reports. The original ruling by The Hague district court included emissions resulting from the use of Shell’s products. The ruling won’t be final as both parties apply for another appeal.
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What Shell is saying: The company argues that emission reduction demands are the prerogative of states, not courts, and is contending that the ruling would not lead to climate benefits as consumers would simply switch to competitors.
What now? The ruling won’t be final as both parties apply for another appeal, and the Court could go one of three ways: Uphold, dismiss, or modify the ruling. One possible modification would be to exclude secondary emissions caused by product consumption.
Shell has a track record: The company, which appealed the court order in April, decided to water down its emissions targets, especially its scope 3 emissions — indirect emissions from the use of its products up and down the value chain that represent 70% of a company’s carbon footprint — by 15-20% by the end of the decade, down from the previous clear-cut 20% target. Shell also registered and sold 5.7 mn of “phantom” carbon credits between 2015 and 2021 tied to CO2 removal that never occurred.
The US + Japan to support ADB in raising its climate financing: The US and Japan agreed to underwrite risks for the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) climate loans, effectively supporting the bank in raising its climate lending by USD 7.2 bn, Reuters reports, citing an ADB executive. The agreement came after three years of negotiations with Western governments, and the bank is currently in talks with the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and European Investment Bank to join the move.
More details: The US and Japan will guarantee up to USD 1 bn and USD 600 mn, respectively, of existing loans. The ADB has a long-term target of USD 100 bn in climate finance between 2019 and 2039. In 2023, the bank lent USD 9.8 bn for green projects.
Setting the tone: The move marks the first-ever sovereign backing for climate finance and paves the way for other development banks to ramp up their own climate lending. The innovative structure allows for raising the lending capacity of multilateral banks while avoiding “general capital increases” from donor countries, which is usually a politically challenging process, ADB’s Director of Partner Funds Jacob Sorensen told Reuters.
Eni sells more of Plenitude to EIP: Italian energy giant Eni is selling an additional stake in its renewables unit Plenitude to Energy Infrastructure Partners (EIP), Bloomberg reports. The transaction — valued at around EUR 209 mn — brings EIP’s total investment in Plenitude to about EUR 800 mn, a 10% share of the company. The transaction was first floated last year, and would allow Eni to lock in a value for Plenitude and lay the groundwork for IPO plans.
Part of a bigger plan: The move comes as part of a 2027 business plan to raise capital for new investments by selling around USD 8 bn worth of assets. Eni’s biofuel unit Enilive is also in that sale pipeline after the company entered a temporary exclusivity agreement with US private equity firm KKR to sell it a 20% to 25% stake last July.
OTHER STORIES WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THIS MORNING-
- Sweden’s Vattenfall to invest EUR 5 bn in German renewable energy push: Swedish energy company Vattenfall plans to invest EUR 5 bn in Germany’s renewable energy sector by 2028, focusing mainly on new wind and solar parks, charging stations, and storage projects. The company aims to expand its solar capacity by 500 MW annually and battery storage by 300 MW. The company already has two operations wind plants, and two offshore ones planned that are set to provide 1.6 GW and could power 1.7 mn German households. (Reuters)
