Paris court orders TotalEnergies to account for clients' emissions in climate vigilance ruling

The ruling

The Paris judicial court ruled on Thursday that TotalEnergies must include emissions from the use of its oil and gas products by customers in its legally required vigilance plan. The company had previously concentrated on its direct operational emissions, leaving out the much larger pool of so-called Scope 3 emissions generated when customers burn its fuels. The court gave the company six months to update its risk assessment and scheduled a hearing for January 2027 to review the new document.

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, but rather requests them to act according to their own situation.

What the court did not impose

Climate groups Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, ZEA and France Nature Environnement, together with the city of Paris, had asked for concrete measures including a 37% cut in oil production and 25% reduction in gas output by 2030, plus a halt to all new fossil fuel projects. The court stopped short of ordering any such production limits. Both sides claimed partial victory: NGOs hailed the recognition that the vigilance law covers climate risks, while TotalEnergies avoided operational constraints on exploration and production.

Heatwave context

The judgment was handed down as Europe endures a brutal heatwave. France, the UK and Spain issued red alerts, forcing the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum to restrict visiting hours and disrupting transport schedules. Over the last four years, more than 200,000 Europeans died from heat-related causes, most of them preventable, according to the World Health Organization. Europe is the fastest-warming continent, with temperatures rising twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, Copernicus data show.

Next steps

TotalEnergies must now revise its vigilance plan to map how combustion of its fuels by end-users contributes to climate risk and outline measures to mitigate those effects. A follow-up court hearing in early 2027 will examine whether the company has complied. The ruling is likely to embolden climate litigation across Europe, building on a growing body of cases that seek to hold oil majors accountable for Scope 3 emissions.