A court in Paris is set to rule 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 that the French corporation is violating a 2017 law that requires companies to prevent human rights abuses and environmental risks.
Background
The lawsuit claims 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, with punishing temperatures extended to the United Kingdom and Spain, where weather agencies issued red alerts about the risks of extreme heat for tens of millions of people.
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.
Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.
