A court in Paris ruled on Thursday that energy giant TotalEnergies must account for its customer’s greenhouse gas emissions, giving the French company six months to report the environmental risks caused by the consumption of its gas and oil products.
The decision, which comes amid a record heat wave in France, fell short of requests from the climate organizations who brought the lawsuit to force the company to reduce its oil and gas production.
The court scheduled a new hearing for January 2027 to consider TotalEnergies’ new assessment under a 2017 law that requires companies to prevent human rights abuses and environmental risks. It is the first time that the so-called corporate duty of vigilance law is being applied to climate change.
The law is not intended to make companies “responsible for the risks linked to climate change, which result from all human activity on the planet since the Industrial Revolution” the court said in a statement, but rather requests them to act “according to their own situation.”
Environmental groups Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, ZEA, France Nature Environnement, together with the city of Paris, launched the proceedings in 2020.
