Paris court orders TotalEnergies to report client emissions

A Paris court ruled on Thursday, June 25, that French energy giant TotalEnergies must account for greenhouse gas emissions from its customers' use of its products and outline measures to address them. The ruling, issued amid a record-breaking European heatwave, marks the first application of France's corporate duty of vigilance law to climate change but stopped short of ordering the production cuts and project halts sought by the plaintiffs.

The Paris Judicial Court found TotalEnergies' existing vigilance plan "incomplete" and gave the company six months to amend it. The updated plan must include so-called Scope 3 emissions-those generated when customers burn the company's oil and gas-along with related mitigation measures. The court stated that climate-related risks fall within the scope of the 2017 law, which requires large companies to prevent human rights violations and environmental damage. A follow-up hearing is scheduled for January 21, 2027, to scrutinize the adequacy of the revised plan.

The case was brought in 2020 by a coalition of environmental NGOs-Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, and France Nature Environnement-alongside the city of Paris. They argued that...