it also believes that achieving that goal is out of its hands: “If society is not net zero in 2050, as of today, there would be significant risk that Shell may not meet its target.”
As temperatures around the world this summer reach levels testing the limits of human survival, will society accept the consequences of continued business as usual? History suggests that climate action will proceed “gradually and then suddenly,” as a character in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” says of bankruptcy.
One problem with this is that not every company can be the last standing. Another is that many companies are not even taking the steps necessary to reduce emissions from their own oil and gas operations, which today far exceed the emissions from all of the world’s cars combined.