Due to the climate change situation and its consequences, The Hague court sentenced the oil company Shell to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to its 2019 levels). Shell is ranked 35th among the world’s most polluting oil companies.
Although this ruling is only legally applicable in the Netherlands, it can be examined in other countries involved in a new era of litigation related to climate change and its consequences, since it sets a precedent for the protection of human rights to life, to health, and well-being, as well as to food and drinking water.
PEMEX (Mexico’s oil company) is among the 20 companies responsible for emitting 493,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (tCO2e) into the environment, which represents 35% of all polluting emissions from 1965 to 2018. PEMEX is responsible for 1.63% of the total pollutant emissions, translating into 23,000 million tCO2e in the last 53 years.
This historic sentence against Shell has a strong impact on Mexico because PEMEX recently acquired the Deer Park refinery, located in Houston Texas, with a value of 600 million dollars (12 billion pesos approximately).
The Deer Park refinery has a 50-50 stake between Anglo-Dutch Shell Oil Company and Petróleos Mexicanos. In case Shell fails to comply with the sentence issued by The Hague court, it will harm the purchase made by the Mexican State since this is part of the stock of an oil company recently purchased by Mexico. The Shell refinery is legally obliged to lower the levels of dioxide in its production, developing new ways of generating crude, light or heavy oil.
Laws have been created for the preservation and restoration of environmental balance, which indicate how to use natural resources, the timing, who can do it, the sanctions and responsibilities in case of not complying with them, as well as the obligation to restore the damage caused.
These laws are an important part of the environmental regulations in our country, and their objective is to preserve and restore the ecological balance, thus covering each environmental area of water, air, soil, rural development, waste, impact, and environmental risk, among others. They seek to reverse climate change and its consequences, such as global warming or the extinction of some species.
Each and every one of us can help to protect the environment. For companies, there is the NOM ISO 14001, an internationally accepted standard, which indicates how to implement an effective environmental management system, so that organizations can reduce their environmental impact.
This is a call to awareness for both, companies and individuals, to create a culture of environmental protection, taking care of the place we live in, complying with all these laws to preserve a better world, not only for us but for our children and the future generations.
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