fossil fuel combustion was the primary cause, and that there was “reasonable scientific agreement that increased levels of greenhouse gases would cause a global warming.”36 The report discussed the potential consequences – including rising sea levels, ocean acidification, changes to agricultural patterns, and climatic change – as well as the potential economic, social, and political severity of those consequences.37 Notably, this included a discussion of the implications for the energy industry as a whole and for Shell companies in particular.38 Even more significantly in light of ongoing and active litigation against the company and Shell’s earlier recognition in the CA Jones memo that oil producers must address the pollution impacts of their products, The Greenhouse Effect not only acknowledged the scale of Shell’s own CO2 emissions, but calculated them: Fossil fuels which are marketed and used by the Group account for the production of 4% of the CO2 emitted worldwide from combustion. Of these emissions, 80% comes from Group oil, 12% from Group gas and 8% from Group coal.39 This explicit recognition that Shell’s sold products accounted for 4% of global carbon emissions in 1984 may have long-term ramifications for the company as it faces mounting litigation based on market share theories of liability. It is particularly significant in this regard that Shell’s self-tabulated emissions figure for 1984 of 0.25 Gigatons of carbon is only marginally lower than the 0.348 Gigaton of carbon emissions attributed to Shell in 1984 using the “Carbon Majors” accounting methodology developed by the Climate Accountability Institute.40 This explicit recognition that Shell’s sold products accounted for 4% of global carbon emissions in 1984 may have long-term ramifications for the company as it faces mounting litigation based on market share theories of liability. Shell also recognized climate change could have “direct operational consequences…from a rising sea level, impacting offshore installations, coastal facilities and operations (e.g. platforms, harbours, refineries, depots) with an uncertain magnitude.”41 Although the report suggested that no immediate facility relocations were needed given the slow pace of sea level rise, Shell nonetheless announced in 1989 that it was redesigning a $3 billion natural gas platform, raising it a meter or two to account for future sea level rise.42 Meanwhile, Shell’s apparent failure to consider the impacts of climate change in siting hazardous facilities in low-lying coastal areas is the subject of active and ongoing litigation.43 The conclusions and recommendations in The Greenhouse Effect shed light not only on Shell’s then-current understanding of climate risks, but on the company’s subsequent conduct in light of that understanding. Although the report acknowledged uncertainties, it counseled that research should “be directed more to the analysis of policy and energy options than to studies of what we will be facing exactly.”44 It also noted that “by the time the global warming becomes detectable it could be too late to take effective countermeasures to reduce the effects or even to stabilise the situation.”45 As will be discussed below, subsequent documents (many of which, unlike The Greenhouse Effect, were not marked “confidential”) highlight uncertainties in forecasts of specific impacts, and cite them as reasons for continued inaction. These explicit acknowledgements should be remembered when considering efforts by Shell to undermine public confidence in the certainty of EXHIBIT 4 Excerpt from The Greenhouse Effect report, 1988 Shell Internationale Petroleum Maatschappij, The Greenhouse Effect 29, 57 (1988), available at http://www.climatefiles.com/shell/1988-shell-report-greenhouse/. A Crack in the Shell | 8 | Center for International Environmental Law