In a groundbreaking legal move, three non-governmental organisations — BLOOM and Santé Planétaire from France, and Nuestro Futuro from Mexico — and eight individuals impacted by climate change, filed a criminal case in Paris on Tuesday (21 May) against the board of directors and major shareholders of TotalEnergies, the world's sixth-largest emitter of CO2.
The company is already facing eight legal cases over its climate impact. But this is the first time that directors and shareholders of a fossil-fuel company are facing criminal charges directly.
The case, initiated just days before the company’s annual general meeting later this week, accuses its board and leading shareholders of endangering lives and involuntary manslaughter.
If found guilty, they could face fines and imprisonment, which would be a legal first.
“Climate change is the world's greatest health emergency. TotalEnergies and the other oil and gas companies are perfectly aware of what they are doing,” said Simon Fremaux, who is a coordinator at the NGO Alliance Sante Planetaire. “Once you're aware of what you're doing, you can't say you're not responsible.”
Each charge carries a minimum penalty of one year in prison and a substantial fine. The prosecutor will decide whether to open a judicial investigation and identify the individuals who will face prosecution.
The complaint specifically names the company's board of directors, including chief executive Patrick Pouyanné, and key shareholders such as BlackRock and Norges Bank, for pursuing climate strategies that contradict the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius.
At the 2023 annual meeting, the board of directors called on its shareholders to vote against a resolution to align TotalEnergies' emissions with the Paris Agreement, although this resolution was rejected by 70 percent of shareholders.
The frequency of weather-related disasters has increased fivefold over the past 50 years, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
And scientific attribution studies have linked the severity and frequency of recent disasters, such as the 2019 Australian bushfires, the 2021 European floods, and the 2022 Pakistan floods, to climate change.
“All fossil fuels are responsible for the deaths of millions of people. This is already the case today, but it's only going to get worse as the temperature rises. Every euro invested in fossil fuels is a euro invested in climate crimes,” said Yamina Saheb, lead author of the UN climate report IPCC and a senior researcher at the French University of Sciences Po.
The NGOs and plaintiffs also demand that the company halts further extraction of fossil fuels, which they argue leads to "globocide" — a term originally coined by philosopher Günther Anders to describe the large-scale extermination of human beings, now repurposed to describe the global devastation of the biosphere.
The plaintiffs, hailing from Australia, Zimbabwe, France, Belgium, the Philippines, Greece, and Pakistan, have all experienced the effects of climate change firsthand.
“It's horrible that there are people who just value their profits so much more than human lives. I will do everything in my power to combat the climate situation and hold those responsible accountable," said Benjamin van Bunderen Robberechts, who is one of the plaintiffs and a survivor of the 2021 flash floods that killed 239 people in Belgium and Germany.
Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.
Wester is a journalist from the Netherlands with a focus on the green economy. He joined EUobserver in September 2021. Previously he was editor-in-chief of Vice, Motherboard, a science-based website, and climate economy journalist for The Correspondent.