Four environmental groups have filed a law suit against the French group TotalEnergies and its EACOP oil project in Tanzania and Uganda. They maintain that it threatens the region's fragile ecosystem and the people who live there.
Lawyers confirmed on Monday a report in the French daily Le Monde that Darwin Climax Coalitions, Sea Shepherd France, Wild Legal and Stop EACOP-Stop Total in Uganda filed a complaint on 22 September.
Lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth, who are representing the four organisations, said in a statement "At a time when the UN is concerned about the ongoing 'climate collapse', TotalEnergies must no longer continue to knowingly, freely and with impunity fuel climate disruption."
"It is time for the company to be held accountable for its activities," the statement added.
In their view, the lawsuit is unprecedented, as it brings TotalEnergies before a criminal court "for acts that are similar to climate change, and which until now have only been brought before civil courts."
🔴 C'est une première en France.À l'heure de "l'effondrement climatique", nous portons plainte contre @TotalEnergies devant le juge pénal pour abstention de combattre un sinistre et homicide involontaire. #TotalAuPenal, avec les avocats @BourdonWilliam2 & @v_brengarth,... pic.twitter.com/FOxm72McgL-- Pierre Larrouturou (@larrouturou) October 2, 2023
The accusations cover a number of alleged offences - failure to combat a disaster, unintentional injury to people, destruction, damage or deterioration of property belonging to others likely to create a danger to people, and manslaughter.
TotalEnergies maintains it has no knowledge of the complaint and "does not know what it is about."
"The company conducts its operations in accordance with its operating standards and with the laws and regulations. It will respond to requests from the authorities if necessary," it told the French news agency AFP.
Last year, TotalEnergies announced a $10 billion investment agreement with Uganda, Tanzania and the Chinese company CNOOC, including the construction of a 1,443-kilometre heated oil pipeline (EACOP) linking the Lake Albert oilfields in western Uganda to the Tanzanian coast on the Indian Ocean.
The group plans to drill nearly 400 oil wells in the Murchison Falls natural park - that includes the White Nile Falls - which is Uganda's largest national park and essential biodiversity reserve.
Controversial project
In early July, Human Rights Watch called for the project to be halted, stating in a report that it had already "devastated the livelihoods of thousands of people".
For HRW lawyers, the project would lead to "major population displacements" and "major impoverishment of local populations."
It would also have a major impact on "numerous natural areas," they have highlighted.
The complainants accuse TotalEnergies of not taking "any action to combat the disaster that is already affecting half the world's population."
They have also criticised the company's communication strategy, which is "designed to give the illusion of an ambitious environmental strategy in order to conceal the absence of concrete and appropriate action" to combat global warming.
'EACOP Has Been A Disaster' - HRW Report on Planned Oil Pipeline @hrw: https://t.co/VBste4az0v #Uganda pic.twitter.com/TNPXo6ZVjI-- allAfrica.com (@allafrica) July 10, 2023
TotalEnergies must 'immediately abandon' all oil projects
TotalEnergies have already been taken to court by Friends of the Earth, Survie and four Ugandan associations in October 2019, which accused it of conducting the EACOP project with contempt for human rights and the environment.
Their case was dismissed last February by a Paris court, which criticised the NGOs for not having sufficiently explored the possibility of dialogue with the oil giant before taking legal action.
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Meanwhile, lawyers Bourdon and Brengarth have also pointed out that, according to the International Energy Agency, in order to comply with the Paris climate agreement and "avoid an apocalyptic future," it was necessary to "immediately abandon" all new oil projects.
The lawyers maintain that TotalEnergies is a private oil company that has approved "the most new oil projects for the period from 2022 to 2025 ... which are totally incompatible with the Paris Agreement and will lead us straight to +3°C or +3.5°C warming ... leading to chaos."
They now hope that the French courts will force TotalEnergies to radically change its investment strategy to drastically reduce fossil fuel investments and massively develop renewable energies", pointing out that in the Netherlands, "the courts have forced the Shell group to reduce its CO² emissions by 45 percent by 2030".
They expect an investigation "to be opened as soon as possible."
