Paris court orders TotalEnergies to review emissions from fuel use
A Paris court gave TotalEnergies six months to assess emissions tied to customers’ use of its oil and gas, while declining activists’ production-cut demands.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
3 min read
A Paris court on Thursday ordered TotalEnergies to account for greenhouse gas emissions linked to customers’ use of its oil and gas products. The ruling gives the French energy company six months to report the environmental risks tied to that consumption, the Associated Press reported.
The decision gives climate campaigners a partial legal win but stops well short of what they sought. According to the AP, the groups behind the case had asked judges to force TotalEnergies to reduce fossil fuel production and end new oil and gas projects.
The court set another hearing for January 2027 to review the company’s updated assessment. The case is the first application of France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law to climate change, according to the AP.
That law requires large companies to take steps to prevent human rights abuses and environmental risks. In a statement cited by the AP, the court said the law does not make companies answer for all climate-related risks created by human activity since the Industrial Revolution, but requires each company to act in line with its own situation.
Activists sought production cuts
The proceedings began in 2020, brought by Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, ZEA and France Nature Environnement, along with the city of Paris, the AP reported. The plaintiffs described TotalEnergies as one of the largest historical emitters of greenhouse gases.
They asked the court to require TotalEnergies to cut oil production by 37% and gas production by 25% by 2030, according to the AP. They also sought a ban on all new fossil fuel projects by the company.
The court did not grant those requests. Instead, it ordered a more complete accounting of risks from the use of TotalEnergies’ products, an area that can make up a large share of an oil and gas company’s climate footprint.
Ruling lands during European heatwave
The decision came as France and other parts of Europe faced severe heat, the AP reported. Weather agencies in France, the United Kingdom and Spain issued red alerts over extreme temperatures affecting tens of millions of people.
The heat disrupted public life across the continent, according to the AP. The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum restricted visiting hours, while schools and transport schedules were also affected.
Scientists have linked human-caused climate change to more extreme weather, the AP reported. The U.N. climate agency has projected that the next five years are likely to break additional heat records.
Europe has warmed faster than any other continent, with temperatures rising at twice the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The World Health Organization’s Europe office said this month that more than 200,000 people in Europe died from heat-related causes over the past four years, most of them preventable.
Climate cases gain ground
The TotalEnergies ruling adds to a growing series of climate-related court decisions, according to the AP. Last year, the International Court of Justice said countries could breach international law if they fail to act to protect the planet from climate change.
In 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that governments must do more to shield people from the effects of climate change, the AP reported. In 2019, the Netherlands’ Supreme Court delivered a major victory to climate advocates by ruling that protection from the potentially severe effects of climate change is a human right and that the government has a duty to protect citizens.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.