Total convicted of “greenwashing”, good news for the planet

TotalEnergies has just lost a “historic” trial, according to the Financial Times . On October 23, the Paris court found the oil and gas giant guilty of “misleading consumers about its climate commitments.”

The legal action was initiated by three NGOs: Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth, and Notre Affaire à Tous, supported by the ClientEarth association. Their complaint targeted the communication campaign launched in 2021 by the multinational corporation to coincide with its name change.

That year, the Total company became TotalEnergies, a “multi-energy” company – from oil to renewables and biofuels. Proud of its “increasingly low-carbon” products, it didn't hesitate to present itself as “a major player in the energy transition.” “To reach net zero by 2050, we are sparing no effort,” proclaimed, for example, a message widely circulated on Facebook, accompanied by a photo of wind turbines against the blue sky.

The NGOs accused the company of false advertising. They called it a “deception,” arguing that even though TotalEnergies had decided to invest in renewables, the group continued to support the construction of new oil and gas infrastructure in the United States, Brazil, Iraq, Uganda, and Mozambique—a blatant contradiction of climate scientists' recommendations.

It must be said that Total has a long history of double-speak. A study published in 2021 in the journal Global Environmental Change showed that the company was fully aware as early as 1971 of the risks of climate catastrophe linked to its activities. This did not prevent its executives from systematically sowing doubt about the scientific basis of global warming until the end of the 1990s.

The court largely sided with the associations, which denounced “a vast greenwashing campaign.” It ruled that TotalEnergies had “deliberately made an environmental claim likely to mislead consumers into believing that by purchasing its products or services they were contributing to the emergence of a low-carbon economy.”

The energy company has one month to remove all communication materials deemed misleading, under penalty of a €10,000 fine for each day of delay. It must also display the court decision on its website for six months.

Symbolic sanctions but “a major legal precedent”, the three NGOs welcomed: until now, no oil and gas company had been convicted for climate disinformation.

As for the head of the Moral Money section at the Financial Times, he notes that the ruling repeatedly refers to the legislation recently adopted by the European Parliament on greenwashing . He concludes that Europe “is no longer a safe space” for companies willing to say anything about decarbonization. Should we complain about that?

Lack of ambition

In its annual summary report published on October 28, UN Climate Change shows that all the plans officially submitted or announced by countries will allow for a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared to 2019. This reduction would be a first, but it remains insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement targets. Quoted by the BBC, Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, believes that “this report shows that we are going in the right direction, but too slowly.” Learn more here .

In the Netherlands, they are marching for the climate

Three days before the parliamentary elections on October 29, nearly 45,000 people marched in the streets of The Hague to urge the next government, whoever it may be, to place the fight against climate change at the heart of its agenda, reports the Dutch News website. This issue has been virtually absent from the campaign, which has been dominated by questions of immigration and access to housing. Read more here .

An “indigenous flotilla” on the Amazon for COP30

Around fifty representatives of Indigenous communities from the Amazon embarked from Francisco de Orellana, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, on October 16th. Their destination: the Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, from November 10th to 21st. Aboard the Yaku Mama, “Mother of the Water” in Quechua, explains Folha de São Paulo, the Indigenous flotilla will sail up the Amazon River through four countries on a journey of some 3,000 kilometers. A way to make their voices heard. To learn more, click here .

You have just read issue number 116 of Climatiques.