Total Criminal

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LET'S BRING THE CLIMATE CHAOS SPECULATORS TO JUSTICE

We are in the process of destroying the world as we know it. Our planet has already reached 1.5°C of global warming, and there’s no “turning back”. The climate machine is spinning out of control, but those who could stop it have a financial interest in continuing – and even accelerating – the recipe for disaster. Not all of us bear equal responsibility for this tragedy. There are indeed investors in climate chaos, who continue to bet on fossil fuels to maximize their profits, knowing full well that their choices are leading to the downfall of the Earth System. What is underway is the destruction of the biosphere, or a “globocide”. It’s as simple as that.

Such behavior is not only inhumane, it's criminal.

Their responsibility for accelerating climate change is greater than ours. They hold our lives in their hands and are consciously and knowingly deciding to destroy them.

Let's not let them continue to do so.

Today, we are taking TotalEnergies’ board of directors and its shareholders to court.
But not to just any court; we're taking them to the criminal court.
It's time that financial investors in climate chaos are punished for what they do: kill.

Millions of people have been put at risk and tens of thousands more have lost their lives because of TotalEnergies. Not to mention the billions of animals wiped out by climate disasters.

Add your voice to support our criminal complaint and let the speculators of climate chaos know that from now on, a civil barricade will always stand against their morbid decisions.

Together, let's take away their license to kill.

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We are taking legal action to make TotalEnergies liable for the criminal consequences of its decisions

Khanzadi

25 years old, Pakistan

“

Even though the flood's damage stays with us, it reminds us how strong we are when we work together. We won't let tough times defeat us. Instead, we'll keep going, aiming for a better future where nothing can dim our hope. (...)”

William

28 years old, France

“

We arrived at around 9am and discovered that my house had completely disappeared. There were no visible foundations; the 3-storey house had been replaced by the riverbed. I honestly had no words to describe what I was seeing and feeling at that exact moment. (...)”

Hilda

23 years old, Zimbabwe

“

That fateful night I realized that climate change is a human right issue. Many were deprived of their right to food, shelter, or proper clothing. It was a very painful experience seeing and thinking that my village, Chimanimani, was now a different place and would never be the same again. (...)”

Frank

29 years old, The Philippines

“

Odette's strong winds ripped off its roof, detached the main door from its frame, threw it several feet away, and shattered glass windows. In one instance, a corrugated sheet from the neighbor's house flew toward us. At that moment, I had already accepted my fate, thinking that we would die. (...)”

Jann

65 years old, Australia

“

Losing my house (along with 126 others in the town) was tough and none of us will forget that but it was the devastation to the environment and wildlife that broke my heart. For 2–3 weeks after the fires the sound of rifles rang out as animals with injuries considered fatal were released from their suffering (...)”

Elisa

38 years old, France

“

Two days before the storm, I had a video call with my mother, who showed me the raspberries she had picked from her garden, and I showed her twelve-day old grandson. The trauma caused by the brutality of this event is permanently ingrained in me. (...)”

Benjamin

17 years old, Belgium

“

While I will forever carry with me that I was unable to save Rosa, I am resolved to honor her memory by dedicating myself to preventing further tragedies. I will do everything in my power to combat the climate crisis and hold those responsible accountable. (...)”

Alexandros

24 years old, Greece

“

It is very scary that now, every year when the summer approaches, I am thinking: this may be now that my house, my neighborhood burn and that me and my family get injured, that we asphyxiate in the smoke. I really don’t want that to happen. (...)”

We are taking legal action to make TotalEnergies liable for the criminal consequences of its decisions

Khanzadi

25 years old, Pakistan

“

William

28 years old, France

“

Hilda

23 years old, Zimbabwe

“

Frank

29 years old, The Philippines

“

Jann

65 years old, Australia

“

Elisa

38 years old, France

“

Benjamin

17 years old, Belgium

“

Alexandros

24 years old, Greece

“

Total, death at heart

Rising sea levels, submerged coastlines, deadly heat waves, devastating wildfires and hurricanes, historic floods and spectacular landslides… There is nothing natural about these ‘natural’ disasters: they are fossil fuel disasters. In 50 years, they have increased fivefold and are growing exponentially in intensity and frequency as the big oil company TotalEnergies increases its profits.

The activities of multinationals, free of any ethical constraints, have deadly consequences on our lives. They can and must stop, because climate change is not inevitable: it is the result of institutionalized actions.

TotalEnergies has known about the direct link between its activities and climate change since the 1970s.

Back then, there was still a chance of avoiding the climate chaos into which we are now being thrown, but the executives and shareholders of the oil major made a different choice: to ignore science and invest in environmental destruction. They have gone even further to defend their profits: they have fought against scientific certainty. They have chosen the side of climate skepticism, lies, data manipulation and the torpedoing of public policies. They have become the relentless architects of a system designed to keep us dependent on oil and gas, when the energy transition should and could have been launched as soon as possible to avoid the worst possible scenario, and when they were best placed to implement it.

Now that it has finally become impossible to openly deny climate change, TotalEnergies has changed its strategy. The company now relies on greenwashing, saturating the public arena with messages that make it look like it has embraced the energy transition, while it continues to invest in fossil fuels at full throttle.

Instead of using its record profits, its technical expertise and the operational power of its thousands of engineers to invest in the transition, TotalEnergies continues to develop projects to expand fossil fuels.

Why? Because they are more profitable than renewable energies. That’s all there is to it.

Producing ‘green’ energy (solar, wind, hydropower, etc.) is profitable, but not as profitable as oil and gas. To maximize their already spectacular profits, the company’s shareholders and management are prepared to sacrifice the world as we know it. This is because the new gas and oil fields that TotalEnergies is developing around the world are climate bombs that chain our demand for energy services to their supply of hydrocarbons.

In other words, the executives and shareholders of TotalEnergies have made, and continue to make, a conscious choice to set our greenhouse gas emissions on an apocalyptic course. A group of individuals, a minority in number and unrepresentative of society because of their inordinate financial power, have made this cynical choice in order to maximize their already obscene profits and thus destroy humanity’s chances of avoiding the destruction of the world as we know it.

Their choices and their votes don’t just destroy lives. They destroy life.

There is only one word to describe their behavior, and that is: criminal.

Individuals and entities that knowingly choose to stubbornly pursue the morbid path of destabilizing our planet’s habitability bear a special responsibility for the destruction of our individual and collective destinies.

Fossil fuel speculators are above all responsible for climate tragedies and above all dangerous.

We must stop them.

We must curb their power to cause harm.

We must take away their license to kill.

We cannot allow a handful of criminally greedy highly privileged people to bury our future without a fight.

That’s why we are now taking TotalEnergies’ directors and main shareholders to criminal court.

Press kit

Press Kit

21/05/24

The full press kit is downloadable here: https://www.totalcriminal.org/pdf/press-kit-an2.pdf

PRESS RELEASE

Today, three NGOs, BLOOM (France), Alliance Santé Planétaire (France), and Nuestro Futuro (Mexico) and eight climate change victims filed a criminal case in Paris against TotalEnergies’ board of directors and main shareholders for their contribution to climate change and its fatal impact on human and non-human lives. In the context of intensifying climate disasters and just three days before TotalEnergies’ Annual General Meeting, this legal action could set a precedent in the history of climate litigation as it opens the way to holding fossil fuel producers and shareholders responsible before criminal courts for the chaos caused by climate change.

TotalEnergies, the world’s sixth biggest carbon major, its board of directors and its main shareholders are being sued for deliberately endangering the lives of others, involuntary manslaughter, neglecting to address a disaster, and damaging biodiversity. Each offense is punishable by at least one year of imprisonment and a fine. The prosecutor will have discretion to open a judicial investigation and to determine the roster of individuals facing prosecution. Nonetheless, the complaint filed today targets the board of directors of TotalEnergies, which determines the Group’s strategic direction including its CEO Mr. Patrick Pouyanné, as well as its main shareholders who voted in favour of climate strategies incompatible with limiting global warming to 2°C and against resolutions aiming at aligning the Group’s climate strategy with the Paris Agreement. These include Total’s largest shareholder Blackrock and 6th largest shareholder Norges Bank.

The NGOs and eight plaintiffs hope to establish the criminal liability of TotalEnergies’ directors and shareholders for their contribution to climate change and to have them condemned for past decisions, which they took despite knowing they would trigger tremendous casualties and environmental damage.

This case also seeks to put a definitive halt to the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, which is leading to an unprecedented situation: a “globocide”, i.e. the irreversible disruption of the Earth System and the biosphere as a whole. Additionally, plaintiffs wish to obtain recognition that certain persons or entities like TotalEnergies’ board of directors and main shareholders hold a superior responsibility in the global destruction of the world as we know it.

Rising sea levels and submerged coastlines, deadly heat waves, mega-fires, devastating hurricanes, floods and landslides: the number of reported weather-related disasters has multiplied by five over the past 50 years, impacting the lives of the eight plaintiffs from Australia, Zimbabwe, France, Belgium, the Philippines, Greece and Pakistan as well as that of million other human beings and billions of animals. The disasters that ravaged their lives, such as the 2019 Australian bushfires, the 2021 European floods, and the 2022 Pakistan floods, have undergone scientific attribution studies, which concluded that climate change made each of them stronger and more likely to occur.

Scientists have established that so-called ‘natural’ disasters are less and less natural: their increase in intensity and frequency is a direct consequence of climate change, 80% of which is due to fossil fuels.

Although the International Energy Agency has recommended to halt all new fossil fuel projects since 2021 to keep to a 1.5°C pathway, TotalEnergies has kept opening oil and gas sites across the planet. It has even become the second most expansionist fossil fuel company in the world. The scientific community has determined that opening new fossil fuel projects is not compatible with limiting temperature warming to viable thresholds.

Despite being perfectly aware that climate change kills, the directors and shareholders of the multi-billion-dollar multinational have made the choice to expand oil and gas production for a single reason: to maximize profits.

At the 2023 Annual General Meeting, the Board of Directors even called on its shareholders to vote against the resolution to align TotalEnergies’ emissions with the Paris Agreement. This crucial resolution was rejected by 70% of shareholders.

Next the prosecutor has three months to decide whether to open a judicial investigation. If a decision is made to dismiss the complaint, or if no decision has been taken, the plaintiffs can lodge their complaint directly to an investigating judge.

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