A French court has ruled that oil and gas multinational TotalEnergies engaged in misleading commercial practices by overstating its climate pledges, marking what environmental advocates have called the first global legal victory against a major oil company for climate misinformation.
The court ordered TotalEnergies to remove several claims from its French website, including statements about achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, which the court said contradicted the company’s continued expansion of oil and gas production.
Environmental law group ClientEarth hailed the ruling as a “historic win against greenwashing,” stating it was the first time a court had found an oil and gas major guilty of misleading the public by “greening its image.”
The civil case was filed in March 2022 by three environmental organizations, targeting roughly 40 promotional claims made by TotalEnergies since 2021.
These included slogans such as “net zero by 2050, together with society” and “Our ambition is to be a major player in the energy transition while continuing to meet the public’s energy needs.”
The court dismissed other complaints related to the company’s promotion of fossil gas and biofuels as clean energy, but ordered its electricity and gas subsidiaries in France to publish the ruling on their websites.
Greenpeace described the verdict as “a major legal precedent against climate misinformation,” while ClientEarth lawyer Jonathan White called it a “landmark judgment” that sends “a clear warning shot to other oil and gas majors in Europe and beyond.”
The ruling comes amid growing scrutiny of corporate green marketing across Europe. Earlier this year, similar judgments were issued against airlines KLM and Lufthansa for exaggerating their environmental efforts
