The French group Totalenergies announced on Wednesday that it had sued the NGO Greenpeace France and the Factor-X firm, authors of a report that accused the oil company of having underestimated its carbon footprint for the year 2019.
The objective of the complaint filed on April 28 by Totalenergies “is to legally establish the false and misleading nature of the information communicated by Greenpeace and Factor-X and to cease its dissemination,” said a spokesperson for the group.
Totalenergies asks that the report published in November be withdrawn and not mentioned again, under penalty of a fine of 2,000 euros per day, in addition to a symbolic euro in damages.
A preliminary procedure must be held in the Paris court on September 7 to set a timetable for the allegations, although it will take months to wait before a judge decides on the merits of the case.
moral prejudice
In their report, Greenpeace and Factor-X accused Totalenergies of having emitted the equivalent of some 1.64 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2019, while the group had publicly stated that it had emitted 455 million tons.
Totalenergies criticized the report, pointing to “methodologies it knew to be necessarily flawed”, causing moral damage to the company.
“It is therefore a matter of principle and a sentence by the court will not prevent Greenpeace from continuing to criticize us if they wish, but it will remind them that public debate on such important issues that concern a listed company requires rigor and good faith” , said. a spokeswoman for Totalenergies.
“Attempt to muzzle the NGO”
The spokeswoman added that Totalenergies’ main goal was to have the report legally recognized as false because Factor-X “presents itself as an expert.”
in greenhouse gas emissions reports. Factor-X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Greenpeace claims that this complaint is an attempt to gag the NGO before the Totalenergies General Assembly, scheduled for May 26, at a time when shareholders are pressing the group for a greater commitment to the climate. Environmental groups have called for the meeting to be broken up in protest against the company’s oil and gas projects.
“Totalnergies wants to involve Greenpeace in a lengthy legal proceeding over calculating their carbon emissions, to try to get our reporting suppressed and to stop us from exposing their deceptive and climate-killing practices: if this was meant to discourage us, it failed, they are ready for us. We will continue to raise the veil on the responsibility of Totalenergies in global warming.
court,” said Jean-François Julliard, director of the French NGO.
Source: BFM TV
