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Historic Victory: Judge Forces Shell to Drastically Reduce CO2 Emissions
Friends of the Earth Netherlands wins climate case against Shell.
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS
For the first time in history, a judge has held a corporation liable for causing dangerous climate change. Today, as a result of legal action brought by Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) together with 17,000 co-plaintiffs and six other organizations, the court ruled that Shell must reduce its CO2 emissions by 45% within 10 years. This historic verdict has enormous consequences for Shell and the fossil fuel industry globally.
Donald Pols, director of Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said, "This is a monumental victory for our planet, for our children, and is a stop towards a livable future for everyone. The judge has left no room for doubt: Shell is causing dangerous climate change and must stop its destructive behavior now."
Main points from the verdict:
- Royal Dutch Shell must reduce its emissions by 45% net by the end of 2030.
- Shell is also responsible for emissions from customers (scope 3) and suppliers.
- There is a threat of human rights violations to the 'right to life' and 'undisturbed family life.'
- Shell must comply with the judgment immediately, because Shell's current climate policy is not concrete enough.
Roger Cox, lawyer for Friends of the Earth Netherlands, stated, "This is a turning point in history. This case is unique because it is the first time a judge has ordered a large polluting company to comply with the Paris Climate Agreement. This ruling may also have major consequences for other big polluters."
The ruling from the court in The Hague will have major ramifications internationally, including in the United States. "The day of reckoning is coming for U.S. fossil fuel companies," said Kate DeAngelis, of Friends of the Earth U.S. "The Biden administration must heed this warning and do its part to end dependence on fossil fuels by ending all support for overseas fossil fuel projects and other fossil fuel subsidies."
Sara Shaw from Friends of the Earth International said, "This is a landmark victory for climate justice. Our hope is that this verdict will trigger a wave of climate litigation against big polluters, to force them to stop extracting and burning fossil fuels. This result is a win for communities in the global South who face devastating climate impacts now."
More information about the ruling can be obtained from the Press Office of the District Court in The Hague: Mr. Gijsbert Wassinkmaat, +31 (0)6 - 528 30 471
May 26th Press conference on location and via Zoom (happening now)
Register to attend the press conference on Zoom here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYtd-mqrDMrGdXuGWax2m0veoJzhFXzkOSq
After the press conference there will be (limited) time for individual discussions with the Milieudefensie spokespersons as well as the chance to speak with the spokespersons of the co-claimant organizations.
Friends of the Earth fights for a more healthy and just world. Together we speak truth to power and expose those who endanger the health of people and the planet for corporate profit. We organize to build long-term political power and campaign to change the rules of our economic and political systems that create injustice and destroy nature.
(202) 783-7400LATEST NEWS
In 'Major Earth Day Win,' House GOP Cancels Vote on Gutting Endangered Species Act
"At a time when we should be strengthening protections for species," said one advocate, "not weakening them, it’s clear there is growing opposition to efforts that put special interests ahead of science and conservation."
Apr 22, 2026
Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives planned to mark Earth Day with a "catastrophic" attack on the Endangered Species Act, but ultimately canceled Wednesday's vote at the last minute, a development celebrated by conservationists nationwide.
After reports of "problems" getting some Republicans to back the ESA Amendments Act and a procedural vote that "showed shaky support from party members," as The New York Times put it, the House adjourned without a final vote on the bill—which the newspaper called "an embarrassing setback" for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
While the lead sponsor, House Committee on Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), claimed that "we just have a few provisions we've got to work through on it, and hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we'll be able to vote on it," Stephanie Kurose, deputy director of government affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that "this should be a wake-up call to Rep. Westerman that not even his own colleagues support his extreme attacks on wildlife."
"It's time for him to drop this failed crusade," Kurose declared. "Good riddance."
Other wildlife defenders joined Kurose in enthusiastically welcoming the blow to what Bradley Williams, the Sierra Club's deputy legislative director for wildlife and lands protection, called "extremely harmful legislation."
"We are encouraged to see that the House of Representatives has pulled this bill after outcry from Republicans and Democrats," Williams said in a statement. "By rejecting a bill that would have gutted protections for endangered and threatened species across the country, Congress is sending a clear message that protecting wildlife is a shared American value, not a partisan issue."
Jewel Tomasula, policy director for the Endangered Species Coalition, which has hundreds of member organizations, said that "given the more than 58,000 emails sent to elected officials, along with hundreds—if not thousands—of calls made in just the past few days, it is clear that the American people support the Endangered Species Act, understand its value, and want its protections for threatened and endangered wildlife to remain in place."
"This is a welcome sign that efforts to gut protections for imperiled species are not moving forward on Earth Day," Tomasula continued. "We're glad Congress is hearing their constituents' concerns about Westerman's harmful bill and taking pause to listen. For now, the important work to protect endangered species can continue. This Congress should leave the ESA alone."
Major #EarthDay win 🎉: H.R. 1897, aka the Endangered Species Act Amendments Act was just pulled from house floor consideration following outcry from both Republicans and Democrats who oppose the bill.
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— Center for Biological Diversity (@biologicaldiversity.org) April 22, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Sara Amundson, president of Humane World for Animals Action Fund, similarly said that "on Earth Day, pulling the House vote on the deeply flawed Endangered Species Act bill is a clarion call that legislators need to stop heeding their own leadership and start doing the will of their constituents."
"At a time when we should be strengthening protections for species like grizzly bears and sea turtles, not weakening them, it’s clear there is growing opposition to efforts that put special interests ahead of science and conservation," Amundson said. "We urge Congress to abandon this harmful proposal altogether and instead focus on upholding and strengthening the Endangered Species Act for future generations."
Defenders of Wildlife legislative director Mary Beth Beetham proclaimed that "now we can really celebrate Earth Day!"
"The public defeat of the Westerman bill is a direct result of sustained constituent pressure," she stressed. "Congress is finally listening to the majority of Americans who support the Endangered Species Act, rather than centering politics and money in its policy decisions."
"The decision to not advance the vote keeps current safeguards in place, which have protected 99% of species from extinction," Beetham added. "While there is still much more work to secure lasting protections for wildlife, today's outcome is a meaningful victory for conservation."
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Trump FCC Chair Hints at TV Warnings for Kids' Content That Acknowledges Existence of Transgender People
"This is a solution in search of a problem, and another example of this commission prioritizing culture war politics over the real issues that affect consumers every day," said the only Democratic FCC commissioner.
Apr 22, 2026
In the Trump administration's latest attempt to push transgender people out of public life, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said Wednesday that his agency is weighing whether ratings on television shows should be modified to warn viewers when trans people are acknowledged.
Carr posted a public notice on social media that the FCC's Media Bureau would be seeking public comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines age rating system—established under the Telecommunications Act of 1996—should include notices for "transgender and gender nonbinary programming" in a similar fashion to existing labels for sex, violence, and other content that parents could consider "harmful" to children.
Carr wrote: "Recently, parents have raised concerns with the industry’s approach... They argue that New York and Hollywood programmers are promoting controversial issues in kids' programming without providing any transparency or disclosures to parents."
Neither Carr nor the FCC's notice elaborated on what supposedly harmful content children were being exposed to or which programs it would seek to warn families about.
The FCC notice also asked for public comment on whether other changes should be made to ensure that the TV Oversight Management Board, which oversees the rating system, represents a "range of family values." It also inquired about whether it should add board members from religious organizations.
While the FCC does not directly implement the programming ratings, it does have a role in overseeing them. As FCC chairman, Carr has brought an unusually heavy hand down on the rights of broadcasters to air content critical of President Donald Trump.
He has threatened to strip the broadcast licenses of networks that cover Trump's war in Iran unfavorably. Before that, he was briefly successful in his efforts to bully ABC into pulling the Trump-critical late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's show from the air.
By labeling transgender and nonbinary representation as dangerous to children, Carr would be taking yet another action to bring the media landscape into conformity with the Trump administration's agenda, which has consisted of systematic attempts to push transgender Americans to the margins of society and portray them as deviant and dangerous, particularly to children.
Among a slew of other anti-LGBTQ+ policies, the administration has reinstated a full ban on transgender people in the military, attempted to punish medical establishments that provide gender-affirming care, withheld passports and other legal documents from transgender people containing their preferred gender identifiers, and aggressively sought to pressure school districts into adopting policies that refuse to recognize trans students.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the agency’s only Democratic commissioner, criticized Carr's push to revise TV ratings.
“American families are worried about affordability, access, and rising costs, not whether the TV ratings system has enough warnings about gender identity,” Gomez said in a statement. “The FCC’s own record shows the existing system is working fine."
While Carr claimed there had been many complaints about "ratings creep" from parents, Gomez noted that the most recent report from the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board said it received just 11 complaints about ratings guidelines in 2025 and that only two resulted in a ratings change.
Gomez said, "This is a solution in search of a problem, and another example of this commission prioritizing culture war politics over the real issues that affect consumers every day."
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'What Are They Hiding?' Trump's Secret Contract for White House Ballroom Revealed
"At every turn, President Trump has sought to conceal the facts about his monstrous multimillion-dollar ballroom,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Apr 22, 2026
While the financing of President Donald Trump's planned $400 million White House ballroom has been shrouded in mystery for months, government watchdog Public Citizen has obtained important new information about the project's funding.
Public Citizen on Tuesday unveiled a copy of the funding agreement the Trump administration has used for the ballroom project after months of legal wrangling that forced the group to file a lawsuit to compel enforcement of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request it made last year.
As summarized by The Washington Post, the ballroom contract's provisions "allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public."
While dozens of big-name corporate donors—including Amazon, Apple, Lockheed Martin, Google, Altria, and Union Pacific Railroad—have been public about their donations to the project, the fact that some donors can choose to remain anonymous is raising serious concerns among ethics experts.
Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore with a long history of scrutinizing government contracts, told the Post that the contract's anonymity provisions could give the Trump administration an escape hatch from future congressional scrutiny.
"If Congress knocks on the door," Tiefer said, "the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors.'"
This means that there is no way to know whether these donors have business before the government, and no way to know if they expect to get something in return for their donations.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyer and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, told the Post that the contract's very narrow scope of reviewing for conflicts of interest among donors renders it "nothing more than a sham."
Jon Golinger, democracy advocate for Public Citizen, said the key takeaway from the newly unearthed documents is that "anonymous donations are the heart of this agreement."
"The questions this raises are, of the hundreds of millions being funneled in secret, who are these anonymous donors, and what are they hiding?" Golinger added. "The American people deserve answers, and we’ll keep fighting until they get them."
Wendy Liu, Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit to obtain the contract, said the administration's initial refusal to comply with a FOIA request was "flatly unlawful," and "the American people are entitled to transparency over this multimillion-dollar project, and this win gets us a bit closer to knowing the truth."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) blasted the Trump administration's efforts to hide the contract in a statement given to the Post.
“At every turn, President Trump has sought to conceal the facts about his monstrous multimillion-dollar ballroom,” Blumenthal said. “His administration has kept the contract under wraps, the identities of big dollar donors secret, and the American people in the dark about what big corporations have to gain by funding this boondoggle.”
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