Shell has abandoned a key climate target for 2035 and weakened another goal for 2030, according to its latest “energy transition strategy”.
The oil major has “updated” its target to cut the total “net carbon intensity” of all the energy products it sells to customers – the emissions per unit of energy – by 20% between 2016 and 2030. The reduction is now set at between 15-20%.
Within Shell’s strategy, chief executive, Wael Sawan, writes that this change reflects “a strategic shift” to focus less on selling electricity, including renewable power.
Instead, the company says investment in oil and gas “will be needed” due to sustained demand for fossil fuels. It emphasises the importance of liquified natural gas (LNG) as “critical” for the energy transition and says it will grow its LNG business by 30% by 2030.
This amounts to a bet against the world meeting its climate goals, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) and others concluding no new oil-and-gas investment is needed on a pathway to 1.5C – and warning against the risk of “overinvestment”.
Elsewhere in the report, Shell notes that it has “chosen to retire [its] 2035 target of a 45% reduction in net carbon intensity” due to “uncertainty in the pace of change in the energy transition”.
Both goals were intended as stepping stones on the company’s journey towards net-zero emissions by 2050, a goal set by the previous chief executive, Ben van Beurden, in 2020.
The weakening of climate goals from Shell, the world’s second-largest investor-owned oil-and-gas company, comes after BP scaled back its ambitions last year.
Weaker targets
The new report marks the first three-year review of Shell’s “energy transition plan”, after it was adopted in 2021.
Rather than setting a target for cutting its entire “scope 3” emissions – those generated by the use of Shell’s fossil fuels and other energy products by consumers – the company set itself “net carbon intensity” targets on its path to net-zero.
This allows Shell to bring down its carbon intensity and hit its targets through means other than cutting its oil-and-gas production, such as selling more low-carbon products, including renewable electricity.
Shell initially said the carbon intensity of the energy it sells would fall 20% by 2030, from a baseline of 2016, and then 45% by 2035.
This amounted to a cut from 79g of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy (gCO2e/MJ) to 63gCO2e/MJ by 2030 and 43gCO2e/MJ by 2035.
As the chart below shows, these targets have now been weakened. The 2030 target has been changed to a range of 15-20% and the 2035 target has been “retired”, according to a footnote in the review.
Shell attributes these changes to a shift in its business priorities.
The firm says that when it comes to selling electricity, including renewable power, it will focus on “value over volume”. For example, it will target “commercial customers more than retail customers”.
The company points to its withdrawal from supplying energy to European homes, having closed its utilities arms in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany in 2023.
Nevertheless, the company also says the “biggest driver for reducing our net carbon intensity is increasing the sales of and demand for low-carbon energy”, rather than cuts in fossil-fuels production. The report states that:
“Investment in oil and gas will be needed because demand for oil and gas is expected to drop at a slower rate than the natural decline rate of the world’s oil and gas fields, which is 4-5% a year.”
This amounts to a bet against the world meeting its carbon targets. If the world were to get on track to limiting warming to 1.5C, there would be no need for investments in new oil and gas production, according to the IEA.
In its 2023 World Energy Outlook, the IEA said that warnings from oil and gas producers that the world was “underinvesting” in new supplies were no longer valid. It said:
“[T]he fears expressed by some large resource-holders and certain oil and gas companies that the world is underinvesting in oil and gas supply are no longer based on the latest technology and market trends.”
The agency added that risks were “weighted more towards overinvestment”.
LNG over oil
Shell has also introduced a new target for cutting emissions from customer use of its oil products, such as petrol and diesel used in cars, within its energy transition strategy review.
This goal amounts to a 40% reduction in absolute emissions by 2030, compared to 2016 – a level the European company says is compatible with the EU’s climate targets for transport. Shell says it will “gradually reduc[e] exposure to oil products used for transport”, by shifting its sales away from this area.
Alongside this, Shell announced a renewed focus on LNG in the strategy, which it says will play a “critical role” in the energy transition, even as people embrace electric cars and therefore reduce their reliance on oil.
The company expects global demand for LNG to continue growing “at least through the 2030s”, and says it will grow its LNG business by 20-30% by 2030.
This marks a continuation of Shell’s focus on LNG from its 2021 strategy, when it said it would “extend leadership” in this area.
Shell’s internal outlook for the growth of global LNG demand is markedly more optimistic than the IEA’s, which suggests that there is already enough capacity built or under construction to meet demand for the next two decades.
According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Shell’s LNG outlook “underestimates barriers” to demand growth. IEEFA says:
“[Shell] is pinning its hopes on rapid demand growth in emerging markets and China’s industrial sector, which may never materialise.”
Despite its plans to expand its LNG business, Shell’s report overall emphasises a “balanced and orderly transition away from fossil fuels”.
Wider trends
Shell states that it has so far met its climate targets and points to its success reducing emissions from its own operations, such as those from oil rigs and offices.
It argues in the small print at the bottom of the report that, despite its targets for consumer carbon intensity, “Shell only controls its own emissions”.
(Shell has long maintained this line, that it is merely meeting the demand of customers to buy fossil fuels. Exxon chief executive Darren Woods recently made a similar argument.)
The report also stresses that its plans for net-zero are dependent on society as a whole and “if society is not net-zero in 2050… there would be significant risk that Shell may not meet this target”. This is familiar language from the oil major, which frequently explains that it is consumers, not Shell itself, that influence fossil-fuel use.
Shell’s review follows the global energy crisis that has unfolded over recent years, driven by spiralling gas prices. In response to the changing energy landscape this has brought about, there has been a shift in tone from the oil majors regarding climate commitments.
It also follows a period in which companies such as Shell have made record profits due to rising fossil-fuel prices.
After taking over from Van Beurden, Shell chief executive Sawan stated that “cutting oil and gas production is not healthy”, emphasising the “fragility of the energy system”. In his introduction to the new strategy, Sawan writes:
“Our ability to raise and invest capital depends on delivering strong returns to shareholders, shaping the role that Shell can play on the journey to net-zero. We believe this focus makes it more, not less, likely that we will achieve our climate targets and ambitions.”
BP, Europe’s second largest oil major, weakened its climate targets last year. The change in its goals, which unlike Shell’s are based on full scope 3 emissions, can be seen in the chart below.
Shell’s “strategic shift” in its operational focus comes amid a wider effort to cut operating costs.
This has seen the company announce plans to reduce staff numbers, in particular in low-carbon sectors of the company such as hydrogen.
The company’s profits have fallen now fossil-fuel costs have returned to more normal levels, but have remained high. In February, the company announced an annual profit for 2023 of more than £22bn ($28bn), one of its most profitable years on record.
The post Shell abandons 2035 emissions target and weakens 2030 goal appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The UK is no longer the top contributor to the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund (GCF), after the government announced that it only intends to honour half of its most recent pledge.
Amid wider cuts to its climate aid for developing countries, the UK informed the GCF in May that it will reduce its commitment for the 2024-27 period to £815m ($1.1bn).
In doing so, the Labour government is drastically cutting a Conservative pledge of £1.62bn ($2.16bn), hailed by former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s government as “the biggest single funding commitment the UK has made to help the world tackle climate change”.
This “record” pledge also meant the UK became the top GCF funder, after the Trump administration withdrew $4bn in pledged US funds in 2025.
Now, the UK follows the US in becoming the second major donor to cancel substantial funding, leaving aid experts concerned that other developed countries will follow suit.
As the chart below shows, the UK’s total past and promised contributions to the GCF have now dropped below those of Germany, France and Japan.
The GCF is the largest dedicated UN climate fund and is seen as a vital way of raising grant-based climate finance for developing countries. It oversees more than $20bn worth of funding across 354 projects and programmes.
Developed countries, such as the UK, are obliged under the Paris Agreement to provide climate finance. One of the main ways to do this is through specialised climate funds, such as the GCF.
However, despite countries committing to increase their climate finance over time, progress in scaling up GCF contributions between funding rounds has been gradual.
With its now-revoked £1.62bn pledge in 2023, the UK was among the donors that had increased its GCF pledging compared with the previous 2019 funding round.
The latest reduction means the UK will now provide around 45% less funding than it did during the 2019 round. This is the biggest reduction between rounds by any major donor, apart from the US.
In an email to the GCF board, reported by the Financial Times, the fund’s executive director Mafalda Duarte said the UK’s actions were “expected to have a material impact on the delivery” of the fund’s projects.
According to the newspaper, Duarte noted that the move came as the UK cuts its overall aid budget in order to “invest more in addressing growing security threats”.
In March, the UK government announced plans to spend “around £6bn” of its aid budget on climate projects in developing countries over the next three years.
Carbon Brief analysis suggests that this spending amounts to roughly halving the UK’s annual climate finance, when accounting changes and inflation are factored in.
The post Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut
SYDNEY, Tuesday 12 May 2026 — Ahead of tonight’s Federal Budget, the following statement can be attributed to David Ritter, CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“As the Albanese government hands down the budget, it has an obligation to both look after households today, and to set Australians up for a flourishing future.
“The government has an opportunity to give Aussies a fair shake of the sauce bottle by taxing gas corporations fairly, accelerating the clean, affordable renewable solutions we already have, backing its own nature law reforms with appropriate funding and by protecting our oceans, forests and climate from polluting gas projects.
“The massive swell for fairly taxing gas corporations shows the public mood has permanently shifted; most Australians rightly do not accept that gas corporations like Woodside and Santos should make obscene war profits, while everyday people face soaring bills, and natural wonders like Scott Reef are threatened by reckless gas drilling projects.
“The global energy shock has exposed the dangers of our dependence on coal, oil and gas, and made clear that our future security and prosperity is in clean, affordable and homegrown wind and solar power.
“This must be a budget to benefit Australians, not gas corporations.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s 2026 Federal Budget expectations can be found here.
–ENDS–
Notes:
Greenpeace has spokespeople available for interview before and after the budget announcement, including experts who can speak on Australia’s climate and emissions, the gas tax, Woodside’s Browse project, Labor’s new nature law, and our renewable future.
Media contact:
Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or kbenard@greenpeace.org
Federal Budget must give Aussies a ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’: Greenpeace
Climate Change
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
PERTH, Tuesday 12 May 2026 — In response to Woodside’s Browse economic modelling released yesterday, the following comments can be attributed to WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Geoff Bice:
“Greenpeace has analysed Woodside’s report on the polluting Browse gas project against independent modelling of WA’s energy system and emissions, and found glaring holes in the case made for the project.
“Woodside has reached a new low by modelling WA’s emissions reduction and energy transition pathway based on wildly expensive and risky decarbonisation options simply to justify its reckless Browse development at Scott Reef, initially rejected by the WA Environmental Protection Authority on environmental grounds.
“The WA Government cannot allow climate policy to be directed by climate vandals like Woodside. The clearest way to get WA’s emissions down is by setting clear emission reduction targets, which Greenpeace continues to call for.”
Key points from Greenpeace’s analysis of Woodside’s modelling follow:
- Gas is the most expensive form of available electricity generation, according to the CSIRO; IEEFA also found that Browse gas would be about four times higher than the current average production cost of domestic gas in WA.
- Direct air capture (DAC): The model assumes WA will be able to capture 6.9Mt of CO2/year by 2050. Worldwide, the current total volumes captured are 0.01 Mt CO2/year. DAC is currently priced at a minimum of $USD-400/tonne with many estimates ranging higher. Even reduced to $200/tonne, the cost per year of the volumes modelled becomes a staggering $1.38 billion, or $34.5 billion by 2050.
- Carbon dumping, or carbon capture and storage (CCS): The model requires 40 times the amount of sequestration that occurred last year at WA’s only CCS operation on Barrow Island (32.4Mt compared to 1.3Mt). Barrow Island CCS has consistently failed to meet requirements and last year alone cost $344m (at 265 AU$/tCO2). At those prices the Woodside modelling results in a cost per year by 2050 to be $8.6 billion.
- Woodside’s Pluto gas facility has been supplying less than 4% to the WA market, far short of the 15% required under the WA domestic gas reservation policy.
- Woodside includes $1.6 billion payable via the Offshore Petroleum Levy. The Levy was implemented to offset offshore decommissioning costs to the taxpayer but is set to expire in 2030 — 3 years before the Browse field is proposed to come online.
-ENDS-
High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here
Media contacts:
Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
Analysis: UK no longer top UN Green Climate Fund donor after latest aid cut
Federal Budget must give Aussies a ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’: Greenpeace
‘A new low’: Greenpeace responds to Woodside’s flawed emissions reduction and renewables modelling
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