As temperatures soar, Paris court set to rule on landmark climate change case
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Facebook Linkedin Threads Whatsapp Reddit Email Page link THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A day after France hit record high temperatures, a court in Paris is set to rule Thursday on a landmark climate change case that could see energy giant TotalEnergies forced to reduce its oil and gas production. The lawsuit, brought by a group of NGOs and the city of Paris, argues the French corporation is violating a 2017 law that requires companies to prevent human rights abuses and environmental risks. It is the first time that the so-called corporate duty of vigilance law is being applied to climate change.
Environmental groups Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, ZEA, France Nature Environnement launched the proceedings in 2020. They claim that TotalEnergies is one of the largest historical emitters of greenhouse gas and have asked the court to require the company to reduce oil production by 37 percent and gas production by 25 percent by 2030. The lawsuit also asks for a halt to all new fossil fuel projects.
The decision comes as Europe is in the midst of a brutal heatwave. Punishing temperatures extended to the United Kingdom and Spain, where weather agencies issued red alerts — like France — about the risks of extreme heat for tens of millions of people. The iconic Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum have been forced to restrict visiting hours and school and transportation schedules have been interrupted across the continent.
Human-caused climate change is tied to increasingly extreme weather, and U.N. climate agency projections say the next five years are likely to shatter more heat records. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
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