The complaint filed with the Paris judicial court targets the Board of Directors of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies, its chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné and its shareholders. These include, among others, the American asset manager BlackRock and the Central Bank of Norway (Norges Bank).
These major players in the hydrocarbon sector are being prosecuted for “involuntary manslaughter, endangering the lives of others, abstaining from fighting a disaster and harm to biodiversity”. The complaint is filed by a collective of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) made up of Bloom, the Planetary Health Alliance based in Paris, and the Mexican Nuestro Futuro. But also eight victims of climate change from all continents, including Zimbabwean Hilda T., a survivor of Cyclone Idai which displaced millions of people in several countries in southern Africa in 2019.
Plaintiffs from all continents
The other plaintiffs, also victims of natural disasters, come from France, Pakistan, Greece, Belgium, Australia and the Philippines. After the complaint, “the public prosecutor will have full discretion to open a preliminary investigation or a judicial investigation in order to establish responsibilities for the facts invoked”indicates the collective.
And to add that such an initiative aims to “put a definitive end to the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, which leads to an unprecedented situation: a “globocide”, that is to say the irreversible disruption of the Earth System and the biosphere as a whole ». For now, TotalEnergie continues to open fossil fuel wells on the African continent.
TotalEnergies reaffirms its strategy in Africa
The French hydrocarbons giant recently gave final approval for an investment of $6 billion for the exploitation of the Cameia and Golfinho oil fields, located 100 km off the Angolan coast. At a depth of 1,700 m, TotalEnergies will pump 70,000 barrels of crude oil per day by 2028.
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An investment decision which confirms TotalEnergies’ strategy in favor of the continued production of fossil fuels. Yet, “scientists have now established that so-called “natural” disasters are less and less so: the increase in their intensity and frequency is a direct consequence of climate change, for which fossil fuels are 80% responsible,” indicates the collective of NGOs and victims of the climate crisis.
The determination of NGOs
In front of this situation, “We are determined to stop climate criminals. It has simply become a matter of life and death.”, declares Claire Nouvian, the founder and director of Bloom. The NGO also warns that “if no action is taken by the public prosecutor within three months, the complainants have the possibility of becoming a civil party and seizing an investigating judge to request the opening of a judicial investigation”.
The complaint is filed a few days before the TotalEnergies General Meeting scheduled for this Friday, May 24, 2024 in Paris. This legal action will undoubtedly be on the agenda of discussions between the shareholders of the oil group which made more than 19 billion euros in profits in 2023, the largest in its history.
Jean Marie Takouleu
