Paris Court Holds Historic Climate Trial in Case Against TotalEnergies

In the city where the Paris climate agreement was created, French oil major TotalEnergies is facing trial in a landmark civil climate case that aims to compel the company to curb its oil and gas production and emissions in line with the global accord’s 1.5 degrees Celsius long-term temperature limit. 

The Paris Judicial Court is holding a hearing on the merits, essentially a trial, Thursday and Friday in the case brought by French nonprofit groups and France’s capital city. Judges are examining, for the first time in the country’s history, whether a multinational oil and gas company can be legally required to reduce its fossil fuel production in line with climate objectives, according to a press release from the plaintiffs. 

If successful, the case would set an important precedent for corporate accountability that could have ripple effects far beyond France, legal experts and climate advocates say. 

French civil society organizations Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, ZEA, Les Eco Maires and France Nature Environnement along with more than a dozen French municipal authorities filed the lawsuit against the oil major, called Total at the time, in January 2020. The suit challenges the company’s continued oil and gas production, despite its longstanding knowledge of the climate consequences, and its failure to adequately address the climate change risks associated with its business and operations. 

It is the first climate case of its kind in France seeking to force a multinational oil company to stop fueling climate change through fossil fuel expansion. 

The case alleges violation of French law, primarily the duty of vigilance—a landmark piece of legislation adopted in 2017 designed to prevent serious human rights abuses and environmental harms by large corporations. The law requires major companies in France to identify such risks and take action to address them. Plaintiffs say this case marks the first time that a court will be ruling on the application of this law to climate change. 

The case was also brought under Article 1252 of the French civil code, which allows citizens to take legal action to prevent damage to the environment. 

In a statement outlining the company’s position on the litigation, TotalEnergies said the case is “misconceived and has no legitimacy.” It asserted that plaintiffs are unfairly trying to impose responsibility upon a single oil and gas company for the impacts of “the entire European and global energy system.”

“It makes no sense at all to prevent TotalEnergies [from] producing oil and gas that the global energy system still uses today,” TotalEnergies said in its statement. “The courtroom is not the right place to advance the energy transition,” the company added. 

TotalEnergies further said that it is already taking steps to invest in lower-carbon energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. It argued that the duty of vigilance law does not apply to climate change and that the Paris Agreement imposes obligations only on states, not corporations. 

Plaintiffs are demanding that TotalEnergies align its business with an emission-reduction pathway compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The lawsuit also asks the court to order the company to take concrete, enforceable measures to slash emissions across its entire supply chain, including from the use of its products. Those emissions account for about 90 percent of the company’s total greenhouse gas footprint. 

As one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies and a so-called carbon major, TotalEnergies plays an outsized role in contributing to the buildup of atmospheric greenhouse gases that are driving the climate crisis, plaintiffs say. The company plans to increase its production by around 3 percent each year, the lawsuit says, and is linked to 30 major fossil fuel expansion projects representing more than half of the remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. 

While it is clear that global heating is set to exceed the 1.5-degree threshold, scientists say it may still be possible to reverse course and return to that temperature level—but only if urgent action is taken to curb emissions and phase out fossil fuels. 

“Since we are nearly now in a world of overshoot, expected to overshoot the 1.5-degree threshold within three years, then that means that we’re legally in a situation where we really need to pursue all efforts, all emissions reduction, to return to below 1.5 degrees of global warming as soon as possible,” Yann Robiou du Pont, a climate scientist and researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, told journalists during a Tuesday press briefing ahead of the climate case hearing. 

He said that emission-reduction scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency indicate that there is no room for fossil fuel expansion with a 1.5-degree limit. “These scenarios also say that we need to end oil and gas exploration as soon as possible,” he said. 

The International Court of Justice confirmed in its historic climate change advisory opinion in July 2025 that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree temperature target remains the central benchmark under international law that countries are obligated to strive to achieve. The ICJ also suggested in its opinion that failure to rein in emissions through continued fossil fuel activities such as exploration and production could constitute an internationally wrongful act. 

“Not a Passive Bystander”

The lawsuit against TotalEnergies also points to the company’s longstanding knowledge of the climate change risks associated with fossil fuels and its role in working to delay the energy transition despite this knowledge. Research published in 2021 revealed that the company had acknowledged the potentially “catastrophic consequences” of unchecked atmospheric CO2 buildup in a 1971 article, yet subsequently promoted climate denial and a strategy of delayed action. 

“We found that even though Total was aware of climate change as early as the 1970s, the company banded together with other fossil fuel companies in the 1980s and developed a plan to deny the science of climate change and to convince people that climate science was too uncertain, and that it would be too expensive to do anything about it,” said Benjamin Franta, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford who co-authored the 2021 study. 

“We know that Total was not a passive bystander,” Franta added, “but that it played an active role in inventing and promoting climate denial, obstructing climate solutions and even still today greenwashing its image.”

In October, the Paris Judicial Court—the same court presiding over the climate case against TotalEnergies—ruled that the company had misled consumers in communications around its commitment to carbon neutrality and being a leader in the energy transition. The ruling was hailed by climate advocates as a historic verdict for fossil fuel industry greenwashing. 

The climate case that the court is hearing this week is looking to build upon that ruling and order the company to change not just its messaging, but also its corporate conduct. 

“Like the rest of the fossil fuel industry, it’s not meaningfully transitioning in a way that’s adequate to avoid catastrophic climate change or to align with the Paris Agreement goals,” Franta told journalists during the press briefing. “Now we need courts to step in, and compel companies like Total to do the right thing.” 

Climate Litigation on the Rise

The lawsuit against TotalEnergies is part of a rising tide of global climate litigation against carbon majors, the fossil fuel and cement producers responsible for generating the majority of historical carbon pollution. 

In the U.S., dozens of suits have been launched against big oil and gas companies aiming to hold them accountable for alleged climate deception and consequent damages. In the Netherlands, the Dutch environmental group Milieudefensie won a landmark verdict in its climate case against Shell in 2021 in which the court ordered the oil company to cut emissions 45 percent across its entire supply chain by 2030. While the order was later overturned on appeal, the appeals court still recognized that high-emitting companies such as Shell have a responsibility to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goals. Milieudefensie filed a new case against Shell last year challenging the company’s oil and gas expansion. 

Shell is also facing a fresh lawsuit in the UK brought by survivors of super typhoon Odette in the Philippines. That suit seeks to hold the company liable for damages associated with the 2021 storm. A similar case, brought by Pakistani farmers who suffered devastating losses from a 2022 flooding event, has recently been filed in Germany against the German carbon majors RWE and Heidelberg Materials. Last year, in a previous climate case filed against RWE by a Peruvian farmer and mountain guide, a German court recognized in principle that large emitters could be held responsible for climate-related damages. 

Franta said that the case against TotalEnergies is “part of a growing trend in which courts are finding that companies that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases do have responsibilities with regard to climate change.” A similar ruling in the Total case, he said, “would be incredibly impactful internationally.” 

“If we win, I think it will certainly set a precedent in France but also more widely,” Théa Bounfour, senior environmental legal officer at Sherpa, one of the French groups behind the case, told reporters during the press briefing. 

Paul Mougeolle, senior legal officer at Notre Affaire à Tous, another of the plaintiff groups, explained that the general principle to not cause harm that is embodied in France’s duty of vigilance law is found in domestic tort law in most other countries. 

“If we can make sure this general principle is applicable in climate change, including to private actors, large fossil fuel companies, then it could be replicable in other jurisdictions,” Mougeolle said. 

The hearing this week will feature arguments by each side’s legal team as well as expert witness testimony. Two French IPCC climate scientists are expected to testify on Friday. 

A decision from the court could come in the next three to six months, Mougeolle said.