The French oil giant, TotalEnergies, has filed a lawsuit against environmentalist group Greenpeace France and climate consulting firm Factor-X over a report accusing the company of massively underreporting its total greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, the company said on May 3.
TotalEnergies has for years been emphasizing a shift away from hydrocarbons after it pledged to be “net zero” by 2050.
Nonetheless, the company is still facing criticism from climate change protestors and activist investors for continued investments in oil and gas projects.
Greenpeace and Factor X accused the energy firm of emitting about 1.64 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2019 instead of the 455 million tonnes announced in public statements.They also accused TotalEnergies of releasing almost 160 million tonnes of Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions, or direct emissions, which TotalEnergies described as “fanciful and false.”
Greenpeace said it shared its November findings with the French government’s AMF market regulator.
“The Greenpeace report follows a methodology that is dubious to say the least,” TotalEnergies wrote in a statement.
It has accused Greenpeace France of counting “the emissions related to the combustion of products in each value chain several times”.“With regard to information concerning the quality and reliability of the information published by TotalEnergies on its direct greenhouse gas emissions which it has under control, the dissemination by Greenpeace of misleading information in this matter is serious,” the company stated.
TotalEnergies immediately decided to pursue legal action to “repair the damage.”
Suing Over ‘False Data’
A civil complaint was served by the plaintiff on April 28, which seeks a court order to force the withdrawal of the report published last November and to remove any references to it, with a financial penalty of 2,000 euros per day, plus one symbolic euro in damages.
The publication allegedly contained “false and misleading information” that harmed the public reputation of the oil company.
The first procedural hearing will take place on Sept. 7 at the Judicial Court of Paris to set a calendar for arguments.
However, it will be several months before a judge begins to rule on the merits of the civil case.
“TotalEnergies wants to drag Greenpeace through a long legal process ... erase our reports and prevent us from denouncing their misleading and climate-killing practices,” said Greenpeace France Director Jean-François Julliard.TotalEnergies alleged that the two organizations had double-counted emissions in their report and knowingly used dubious methodologies, which were known to be highly prejudicial to the company.
“This is a question of principle, and a judgment from the court will not prevent Greenpeace from continuing to criticize us and our climate strategy if they wish, but will remind them that public debate on issues with such high stakes concerning a listed company require rigor and good faith,” said a TotalEnergies spokesperson.
The spokesperson explained that the company’s primary goal was to have judicial authorities recognize the slanderous nature of the report since Factor-X, which wrote up the findings, presents itself as an expert in the field of carbon emissions calculations.
Greenpeace France said last November that it had based its own calculations on publicly available production and trading data and that it was “fully ready” to engage in a judicial debate.
“Rather than responding to the substance of the problem, that is to say the weight of its responsibility in the climate crisis, TotalEnergies chooses the path of intimidation and legal attack,” Julliard said.
“It seems obvious that the major hides part of its emissions from the general public and its investors,” he continued.
Climate Activists to Rally
Greenpeace accused TotalEnergies of attempting to muzzle it ahead of the company’s annual general assembly meeting on May 26, where activist shareholders are planning to push for stricter climate commitments.
Environmentalist groups have called for protestors to block entry to the event to halt the firm’s global oil and gas projects.
TotalEnergies executives urged shareholders on April 28, to reject an AGM resolution that seeks accelerated cuts under the company’s greenhouse gas emission reduction program, Reuters reported.
A resolution was submitted to the company annual meeting by climate activist group Follow This, with support from a group of radical activist investors, with $1.1 trillion in assets under management.
“The implementation of this strategy would be bad for shareholders as the company would have to sell its oil and gas product marketing activities to other operators,” TotalEnergies wrote in its response.
“Without an evolution of the overall structure of energy demand, (this) would lead to a shift of this demand to other suppliers, notably the national oil companies of producing countries ... and therefore no positive impact on the climate.”
TotalEnergies has said that any of the changes to its emissions standards would have little effect in severely reducing greenhouse gasses by 2030.
The oil giant had told investors to approve its own climate plan, which will cover less extreme emissions cuts at its own facilities.
Greenpeace France has repeatedly attacked the oil company’s East African Crude Oil Pipeline project and its plan to provide liquefied natural gas in Mozambique, calling the investments “climate bombs”.
Reuters contributed to this report.
