TotalEnergies Appeals Paris Duty of Vigilance Climate Ruling — Must Submit Revised Climate Vigilance Plan by December 2026; Scope 3 Corporate Liability Remains Open Question

TotalEnergies announced on July 27 that its board had approved an appeal of the Paris Judicial Court ruling requiring the company to revise its climate vigilance plan under France's 2017 Duty of Vigilance Law. The original judgment — issued approximately one month before the appeal announcement — required TotalEnergies to revise its climate strategy and submit a new climate vigilance plan before December 2026, at which point the Paris Judicial Court will assess whether the revised plan meets the legal standard. The appeal was filed by Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, France Nature Environnement, and the City of Paris. The lower court ruling is enforceable while the appeal proceeds. TotalEnergies argues that global climate change extends beyond the intended scope of the Duty of Vigilance Law and that companies cannot be held responsible for Scope 3 emissions generated by customer consumption decisions. TotalEnergies is expected to rely on the 2024 Dutch Court of Appeal ruling that overturned Shell's 2021 45%-reduction order, in which the appellate court concluded that Shell has a responsibility to contribute to climate mitigation but courts cannot impose specific emissions-reduction obligations covering customer behaviour. For ESG practice leaders and climate litigators: the outcome at the Paris Court of Appeal is the most consequential European corporate climate decision in the pipeline. If the Paris court upholds the duty-of-vigilance approach to Scope 3, it creates a direct European legal basis for corporate climate obligations that extend to the full value chain including customer use — which affects the advising posture for every European-nexus multinational in the fossil-fuel, automotive, chemicals, and aviation sectors. If it adopts the Dutch appellate reasoning, it limits courts' ability to impose specific reduction obligations based on customer behaviour but leaves the underlying due diligence obligation intact.