Shell's salad years are over

Carbon Market Watch criticizes Shell's $300 million investment in tree planting and forestry offsets, arguing that such measures do not reduce emissions and are undermined by the company's continued lobbying against climate action and massive investment in oil and gas infrastructure over low-carbon alternatives.

• Shell's plan to invest $300 million in "natural ecosystems" to reduce its net carbon footprint by 2-3% over three years is criticized as problematic due to the difficulties in measuring CO2 absorption, baseline setting, indirect land use change, and the "permanence" problem where stored carbon can be re-released if trees die.
• The "carbon neutral driving" offer for clients via carbon offsets is deemed ineffective because it does not reduce emissions and provides a cheap alternative to behavioral change; the implied carbon price of less than €5/tCO2e is significantly lower than the $40-80/tCO2e estimated as necessary to meet Paris Agreement objectives by 2020.
• Despite its climate claims, Shell spent $49 million on climate-related lobbying in 2018, and its $100 million annual forestry investment represents only 0.47% of its 2018 profits.
• There is a stark disparity between fossil fuel and low-carbon investments among major oil companies; forecasted 2019 Capex expenditures for Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Total total $110.4 billion for oil and gas projects compared to only $3.6 billion for low-carbon activities.

APA

Dufrasne, G. (2019). Shell's salad years are over. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2019/04/25/shells-salad-years-are-over/

Chicago

Dufrasne, Gilles. Shell's salad years are over. Carbon Market Watch, 2019. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2019/04/25/shells-salad-years-are-over/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Dufrasne |first1=Gilles |title=Shell's salad years are over |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=25 April 2019 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2019/04/25/shells-salad-years-are-over/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{dufrasne2019shells, author = {Dufrasne, Gilles}, title = {{Shell's salad years are over}}, publisher = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2019}, month = apr, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2019/04/25/shells-salad-years-are-over/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }