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Achieving net-zero emissions

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Achieving net-zero emissions

Working with our customers and across sectors to accelerate the transition to net-zero emissions

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Tackling climate change is an urgent challenge. We will contribute to a net-zero world, where society stops adding to the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

That is why we have set a target to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in step with society and our customers. This supports the more ambitious goal to tackle climate change laid out in the UN Paris Agreement: to limit the rise in average global temperature to 1.5° Celsius.

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Becoming a net-zero emissions energy business means that we are reducing emissions from our operations, and from the fuels and other energy products we sell to our customers. It also means capturing and storing any remaining emissions using technology or balancing them with offsets.

We are transforming our business and finding new opportunities – providing more low-carbon energy such as biofuels, hydrogen, charging for electric vehicles and electricity generated by solar and wind power.

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Achieving our target could mean that, by 2030, we are: providing enough renewable electricity for 50 million households; operating more than 2.5 million charging points for electric vehicles; producing eight times more low-carbon fuels; and increasing the amount of biofuels and hydrogen in the transport fuels we sell to 10%, from 3% today.

We are partnering with customers, businesses and others to address emissions, including in sectors that are difficult to decarbonise such as aviation, shipping, road freight and industry. Partnering with others includes supporting government policies to reduce carbon emissions, sector by sector. We will continue to drive innovation to provide the cleaner energy that our customers need.

Shell's strategy to achieve net-zero emissions

  • In October 2021, we set a target to reduce absolute emissions by 50% by 2030, compared to 2016 levels on a net basis. This covers all emissions in Scope 1, which come directly from our operations, and in Scope 2, from the energy we buy to run our operations, under our operational control.

  • This complements our targets to reduce the carbon intensity (Net Carbon Footprint) of the energy products we sell, in step with society. This includes short-term targets of 2-3% by 2021, 3-4% by 2022, and 6-8% by 2023 (compared to 2016). It also includes medium- and long-term targets of 20% by 2030, 45% by 2035, and 100% by 2050 (compared to 2016).

  • We have linked the pay of more than 16,500 staff to our target to reduce the carbon intensity of our energy products by 6-8% by 2023, compared to 2016.

  • We believe our annual oil production peaked in 2019, and we expect our total oil production to decline by 1-2% a year until 2030.

  • We are investing around $1 billion every year in low-carbon energy such as charging for electric vehicles, hydrogen, biofuels and electricity generated by wind and solar power. We plan on increasing that to around $2 billion, provided that we can find the right commercial opportunities.

  • We seek to have access to an additional 25 million tonnes a year of carbon capture and storage (CCS) capacity by 2035 – equal to 25 CCS facilities the size of our Quest site in Canada.

  • By 2025 we will end routine flaring of gas, which generates carbon emissions, from the Upstream assets we operate.

  • By 2025, we expect to have kept the methane emissions intensity of Shell-operated assets to below 0.2%.

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