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It’s too late for court rulings: Shell must fall
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The big question dangling over Shell and other fossil fuel corporations is whether it is possible for them to be part of a genuine transition and keep paying dividends to shareholders, or even make a profit, at the same time. Shell’s calculus is purely monetary: if in the immediate term there is more money to be made from wrecking the planet than from refraining to do so, there will be no incentive for it to cease harmful fossil fuel extraction and stop exploiting its workers. For companies like Shell, legal challenges are little more than ‘financial risks’ to be hedged.

We at #ShellMustFall are convinced that Shell, by its very design, will never be a fair and ecological company. It is therefore insufficient to simply put pressure on Shell to behave better. Instead, we propose a four-point plan to bring an end to Shell and the entire fossil fuel industry.

1) Dismantle Shell

This means winding down the company, closing the drilling wells and closing down fossil fuel infrastructure. Notably, this is where climate litigation has its limits. Under current law it is impossible for a judge to seize the assets and shares of a company and put it under democratic control. We need people power to do this. But it is important to realize that eventually, fossil fuel will come to an end: even CEOs cannot survive on a burning planet. We can either leave this transition in the hands of those who have caused the damage in the first place or take it into our own hands and do it in a just and orderly manner.

The exact steps needed to dismantle fossil fuel companies require further discussion, but history teaches us that it is possible. The Dutch East India Company was nationalized in 1796 and decommissioned in 1798. In 1911, Standard Oil, the world’s largest oil conglomerate at the time, was dissolved into 34 smaller businesses in a historic antitrust trial. And the banking crisis of 2008 showed that governments can buy up financial giants and reorganize them. None of these examples was without issue, and we can learn a lot from what did and didn’t work. But one thing is for sure: drastic times call for drastic measures.

2) Ensure reparations for impacted communities and ecosystems

At our last action during Shell’s annual shareholders meeting, we acted out what climate justice could look like. Dressed as construction workers, we took a wrecking ball to the Shell headquarters and informed local residents that the Shell office would be taken down to make place for an International Tribunal for Climate Justice – as called for at the 2010 World People’s Summit in Bolivia.

A Climate Justice Tribunal would hold environmental criminals to account. It would ensure reparations for communities whose members have been killed and whose livelihoods have been ruined, and help Indigenous communities to restore damaged ecosystems.

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/its-too-late-for-court-rulings-shell-must-fall/