Shell has weakened some its greenhouse gas emissions targets, in another sign of the shift in some quarters away from more ambitious climate targets.

While it has kept its 2050 net-zero target (for scope 1 and 2 emissions, but not scope 3), it has dropped the target of a 45% reduction in the net carbon intensity of its energy products by 2035 and revised its 2030 target from 20% to 15-20%.

CEO Wael Sawan told the Financial Times that the company’s adjustments were “not about trying to change a trajectory, we are committed to that trajectory”, but that the company had learned, since first announcing its targets in 2021, that “the shape of the energy transition and the pace of the evolution in different countries is just uncertain”. (This latter reason does seem like it would have been something that would have been apparent at any time over the last two decades.)

What is perhaps a more important target – to halve its absolute emissions from operations from its 2016 levels by 2030 – remains intact (with a 31% reduction already achieved), though softening the carbon intensity targets implies something of a lack of clean energy innovation.

Mr Sawan also told the Financial Times that the “discussion has to be around . . . what are people doing rather than the promises that are being made”, echoing a much-criticised view expressed by ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods at the end of February. Mr Woods told Fortune magazine that people “who are generating the emissions need to be aware of [it] and pay the price”. Mr Woods expanded on this by saying that “People can’t afford it, and governments around the world rightly know that their constituents will have real concerns. So we’ve got to find a way to get the cost down to grow the utility of the solution, and make it more available and more affordable so that you can begin the transition.” In his view, the “policies that are being put in place aren’t aggressive enough, and don’t incentivise the right kind of actions to be successful.” He also said that not nearly enough investment is being made in technology, and that “we’ve waited too long to open the aperture on the solution sets in terms of what we need, as a society, to start reducing emissions.”

The willingness on the part of citizens to pay for action on climate change, especially amidst a period of high inflation, is indeed a stark question, and much of the rest of what Mr Woods says is true. Such statements are difficult to swallow for many people, however, as they come on the back of recent record profits for the oil and gas industry.