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A TotalEnergies petrol station in Handeni Tanga, Tanzania. Image by Praygod mwanga via Wikimedia Commons (CCBY4.0).
French oil and gas giant TotalEnergies has been found by a Paris court to have deceived consumers by overstating its climate pledges and its role as an active player in the fight against global warming.
The court last week ordered TotalEnergies to remove those misleading environmental claims from its website, in a move NGOs say marks the first time a major oil company has been penalized for greenwashing.
“It sends a signal globally that the oil and gas industry’s common transition claims are misleading,” Johnny White, a lawyer for ClientEarth, a U.K.-based law firm supporting the complainants, told Mongabay by email. “From now on, when companies pursuing fossil fuel expansion use this type of narrative, it is neither credible nor legally safe.”
In 2022, the NGOs Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France, and Notre Affaire à Tous, supported by ClientEarth, filed a lawsuit against the French oil giant, challenging the company’s communication campaign accompanying its name change from Total to TotalEnergies in 2021. The campaign included ambitions of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy, as well as statements promoting the environmental performance of natural gas and biofuels as essential for the energy transition.
The NGOs presented evidence showing that despite this rhetoric, the company is pursuing new fossil fuel projects in various countries, including Iraq, Denmark, Tanzania and Uganda, contradicting both its stated climate commitments and its public messaging.
The Paris court found TotalEnergies’ statements about its ambition “to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 together with society” and “to be a major player in the energy transition” misleading. The judge ruled the company must take down these misleading promotions from its website, and display the ruling prominently for a period of six months. Failure to do so would attract a penalty of 10,000 euros (about $11,600) per day of delay.
The judge also ruled that the company’s communications relating to fossil gas and biofuel weren’t directly related to sale of energy to consumers and didn’t meet the conditions for misleading commercial practice.
In response to Mongabay’s questions, TotalEnergies pointed to its press release, which states: “The three paragraphs in question will be replaced by a factual description of what TotalEnergies has achieved to date in the implementation of its multi-energy strategy, in order to dispel any doubt among its customers.”
The company confirmed it has decided not to appeal the decision.
The court didn’t penalize the company monetarily for its misleading statements, but ordered an 8,000 euro ($9,300) fine for “moral damage,” payable to all three NGOs that brought the case, according to White. TotalEnergies must also cover their legal fees.
White added it will be interesting to see how the Paris ruling impacts ongoing greenwashing cases, such as one filed by against Australian gas company Santos Ltd. over its net-zero claims.
Author: Victoria Schneider
This article was originally published on Mongabay under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.
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