French court grapples with first major climate trial against oil giant

PARIS (CN) — Who is responsible for global warming and environmental harm: the government, the enterprises extracting polluting resources or the individual who takes short-distance flights?

These questions were at the heart of the debate on Thursday and Friday, when the Paris Judicial Court presided over a landmark trial that could drastically impact how major companies contribute to the fight against global warming.

“If I take public transport in the morning, it’s not the company who’s responsible, it’s me!” Christian Gollier, the prominent ecological economist, exclaimed to a packed courtroom on Friday morning. He was summoned to deliver an expert opinion on the costs of climate action.

Gollier added that TotalEnergies, one of the world's seven supermajor oil companies, isn’t responsible for individual actions.

“Please don’t mention Total, this is objective,” the court’s presiding judge said, prompting laughter in the audience. “You’re not here to defend one party or another.”

In 2020, Paris and four organizations — Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, France Nature Environnement and ZEA — sued TotalEnergies for failing to act on its climate obligations. The legal challenge is rooted in a 2017 French law on the duty of vigilance, which requires companies with over 5,000 employees in France or 10,000 internationally to implement a plan to prevent infringements on human rights, health and the environment.

“It was phrased by saying that companies must prevent damage to the environment and human rights, but the word 'climate' is not in this law,” Justine Ripoll, the campaign manager for Notre Affaire à Tous, explained. “However, what we're arguing is that obviously, if we're talking about serious harm to the environment and human rights, the climate crisis completely checks both of those boxes and therefore the climate can be interpreted as being part of companies' duty of vigilance.” 

The verdict in this case is expected to set a precedent for future rulings. In France, judges have not yet ruled on how the duty of vigilance should apply to climate matters.

“This is the first trial, at least in France, that aims to recognize the responsibility of a major oil company in terms of climate change,” Sébastien Mabile, plaintiff’s attorney and partner at Seattle Avocats, said before the hearings began. “And to ask it to comply with a standard of behavior which should aim to respect the universal objective that is set in Article 2 of the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”

TotalEnergies is the sixth-largest producer of oil and gas worldwide at roughly 2.43 million barrels per day. The plaintiffs want the company to stop any new fossil fuel projects, reduce its current production levels and lower emissions. If the company doesn’t comply with the court’s decision within six months, they’re also asking for an added financial penalty of roughly $28 million per day.  

The hearings saw a wide range of debate over supply and demand, the question of “hypothetical” environmental predictions and the grey zone of Scope 3 emissions.

On Thursday, TotalEnergies’ defense team opened by describing the case as more of a “media” than “judicial” affair. He argued there was a “demonization” attempt on the company fueled by “multiple attacks” with “bad motivations,” and it was “sanctification in the extreme.”

At one point, an audience member with long, greying hair, stuck her tongue out in disgust as she looked at the person next to her, who nodded.

Throughout the afternoon, attorneys toed a thin line between downplaying TotalEnergies’s role as a major oil and gas producer and emphasizing how the world runs on fossil fuels, and therefore the company’s work is critical. They delivered an example of a Parisian taking a plane from the capital to Marseille for the weekend, and how that’s the choice of consumers.  

Although TotalEnergies has made substantial efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, a Paris court found the company guilty of greenwashing in October 2025, concluding it misled consumers about its climate goals. It is also seeking to invest in new fossil fuel projects.

“Total is the leader of this … decarbonization [effort],” one attorney said. “So it’s a little paradoxical that today we’d be attacked for our impact … on climate change.”

In an unexpected twist of events on Feb. 3, roughly two weeks before the hearings began, the public prosecutor’s office issued an official opinion on the case as an “intervening party.” They aligned with TotalEnergies’s position, arguing that “the scope of the law on the duty of vigilance does not extend to climate change.”

“A global phenomenon, global warming concerns everyone but is essentially the responsibility of the international community and states,” it wrote in the memo.

But the plaintiffs didn’t see this as much cause for concern, and dismissed the prosecutor’s arguments.

“I think that this opinion, which is very poorly documented, very poorly sourced, very poorly argued, will be quickly dismissed by the court for the simple reason that TotalEnergies, like most large companies, already integrates climate into their vigilance plan,” Mabile said.

Théa Bounfour, Sherpa’s senior advocacy and litigation officer, argued the prosecutor’s attempt to intervene further underscores the high stakes of the case.

“The public prosecutor's office chose to issue an opinion, because in civil cases, it's absolutely not an obligation,” she explained. “That already shows the importance of the case, because the public prosecutor's office, which is not a party to the trial, chose to issue an opinion on an important legal question about the scope of the law on the duty of climate vigilance.”

A verdict is expected before the summer.

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