A landmark day as courts and investors confront Big Oil

The oil industry suffered a remarkable series of blows on a single day this May, as a Dutch court ordered the energy giant Shell to drastically cut its emissions and activist investors won seats on the board of ExxonMobil, in a striking demonstration of the mounting pressure on fossil fuel companies from courts, investors and society.

In a groundbreaking ruling, a court in the Netherlands found that Shell had a duty to reduce its carbon emissions far more steeply than it had planned, ordering the company to cut them by nearly half within the decade. It was one of the first times a court had imposed binding emissions-reduction obligations on a private company, and it sent shockwaves through the industry.

On the same day in the United States, a small activist investment firm, backed by major institutional shareholders frustrated with the company's climate strategy, succeeded in placing several of its nominees on the board of ExxonMobil, a stunning rebuke to the management of one of the world's largest oil companies.

Together, the events signalled a shift in the balance of power. Fossil fuel companies, long dominant and seemingly immovable, were being confronted on multiple fronts — in the courts, in shareholder meetings and in the court of public opinion — by those demanding faster action on climate.

The developments emboldened campaigners and investors pressing for change, and put every major fossil fuel company on notice that the legal, financial and reputational risks of inaction were growing. It was, many declared, a landmark day in the long struggle to hold the industry to account.