TotalEnergies ordered to disclose climate risks from emissions by Paris court

A Paris court has ruled that the French oil company TotalEnergies must disclose the climate risks linked to emissions from its oil and gas products and set out plans to address them in a high-stakes case brought by NGOs and the city of Paris.

The ruling on Thursday is a partial victory for climate change NGOs seeking to apply France’s 2017 corporate duty of vigilance law to the climate crisis. However, the court stopped short of ordering specific measures such as limiting overseas exploration and production or setting binding emissions reduction targets.

The case is the latest in a growing wave of climate litigation targeting big corporate emitters. The NGOs and TotalEnergies battled at the Paris judicial court over whether environmental risks fall within France’s corporate duty of vigilance law, which was enacted in 2017.

The court said: “Climate-related risks and impacts to which the company may contribute through its activities fall within the scope of the law on the duty of vigilance for parent companies and ordering companies.”

The city of Paris hailed the ruling as “a landmark decision in the history of French climate law”.

The deputy mayor, Alice Timsit, said: “For the first time, a judge recognises that climate risks do indeed fall under the duty of vigilance owed by large corporations, and no fossil-fuel multinational can evade this responsibility.

“The city joined this lawsuit because we are experiencing first-hand the impact of climate change on a densely populated, urban metropolis,” Timsit said as France and other European countries bake under a record-breaking heatwave.

Company lawyers had argued during February hearings that the law did not cover global heating. But the four NGOs that took TotalEnergies to court said the law’s reference to prevention of environmental risks encompasses local pollution and climate change.

The claimants specifically accused TotalEnergies of refusing to account for indirect emissions from end users, which they said amounted to 342m tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024.

TotalEnergies argued that the law applied only to the company’s own operations and those of its contractors, not to customer activity.

The court, however, said the company’s vigilance plan was “incomplete” and gave TotalEnergies six months to amend it to include such emissions from end users, known as Scope 3.

The court said: “Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions are among the emissions resulting from the group’s activities within the meaning of the law, due in particular to the inherent link between oil and gas production and the combustion of the products by users.”

TotalEnergies has said it was the victim of “demonisation” by the claimants. Its lawyers argued that climate change would continue even if the company, which accounts for less than 2% of global production, shut its operations.

The NGOs wanted the court to order a halt in new fossil fuel projects by the French energy group along with production cuts of 37% for oil and 25% for gas by 2030.

But the court declined to impose such measures on TotalEnergies, saying the law did not allow the judge to “take the place of the company” to demand the implementation of specific actions.

The company had called the measures requested by the claimants unreasonable and ineffective, arguing that production cuts or cancelled projects would simply shift output to competitors.

In a rare move, the Paris public prosecutor also intervened in the civil proceedings and echoed TotalEnergies’ stance, warning that imposing an overly broad protection obligation on companies would not be workable.

The case, opened in 2020, had produced interim wins for campaigners. In 2024, the Paris appeals court allowed the lawsuit to proceed but dismissed claims from several local authorities, including New York City, which had sought to join the case. Only the city of Paris was recognised as having standing.

Other big polluters have been taken to court around the world. In late 2024, a Dutch appeals court overturned a ruling that had ordered Shell to deepen emissions cuts. The country’s supreme court is due to issue a final ruling on the case.

Joy Reyes, a policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: “This is a significant decision, the first in France to bring a company’s full climate impact within its legal duty of vigilance. The court held that climate risks are part of that duty, addressing them is a legal obligation, not voluntary good practice.”

Dr Noah Walker-Crawford, a research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute, said: “This judgment is grounded in scientific consensus, treated by the court as established rather than open to dispute. Emissions warm the planet, that warming threatens human rights and that fossil fuel producers contribute to it.

“Central to the ruling was the inevitability of combustion. Oil and gas extracted for sale will be burned and the resulting emissions are causally tied to its extraction. The judgment reflects that the need to urgently respond to climate change is supported not only by science, but by law.”