Shell announces its strategy to accelerate drive for net zero emissions

OGCI member Shell set out its strategy to accelerate the company’s transformation into a provider of net-zero emissions energy products and services, powered by growth in its customer-facing businesses. The strategy supports the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Shell also confirmed its expectation that total carbon emissions for the company peaked in 2018 at 1.7 gigatonnes for the year, and oil production peaked in 2019.

Shell set out details of how it will achieve its target to be a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. This comprehensive target covers the emissions from operations and the emissions from the use of all the energy products it sells, including the emissions from the oil and gas that others produce and Shell sells as products to customers,

To achieve net zero, Shell’s strategy includes:

• a new set of targets to reduce net carbon intensity: 6-8% by 2023, 20% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 100% by 2050, using a baseline of 2016;
• seeking access to an additional 25 million tonnes a year of carbon, capture and storage capacity by 2035 (Shell’s current involvement in Quest in Canada (in operation), Northern Lights in Norway (sanctioned) and Porthos in The Netherlands (planned), will total around 4.5 million tonnes of capacity; and
• the use of high-quality nature-based solutions, in line with the philosophy of avoid, reduce and only then mitigate, to offset emissions of around 120 million tonnes a year by 2030.

Shell will work with the Science Based Targets Initiative, Transition Pathway Initiative and others to develop standards for the industry and align with those standards. It will submit an Energy Transition Plan for an advisory vote to shareholders in 2021, the first in the sector to do so. The plan will be updated every three years and shareholders will vote on the progress made each year.