PARIS: The heatwave scorching Europe has the fingerprints of climate change all over it and is “the latest price to pay for fossil fuel pollution baking our planet”, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said on Thursday.

Europe has endured extreme heat this week, with record-breaking temperatures in France, Britain and Spain and other countries issuing high-level heat alerts. “Europe’s savage heatwave has the fingerprints of the climate crisis all over it — it’s the latest price to pay for fossil fuel pollution baking our planet,” Stiell said in a statement.

“Until humanity stops burning colossal amounts of coal, oil and gas, extreme heat will keep getting worse,” he said.

Clients’ emissions

A French court on Thursday ordered TotalEnergies to account for its clients’ emissions and outline measures to address them, in a ruling that NGOs hailed as a victory in the major climate case.

Court orders Total Energies to account for clients’ emissions

The court, however, stopped short of imposing specific measures demanded by the plaintiffs against the French energy giant, including a halt in new fossil fuel projects and cuts in oil and gas production.

The case is the latest in a growing wave of climate litigation targeting major corporate emitters worldwide, and it comes as France and other European countries are baking under a record-breaking heatwave.

The NGOs and TotalEnergies battled at the Paris Judicial Court over whether environmental risks fall within France’s corporate duty of vigilance law, which was enacted in 2017. “Climate-related risks and impacts to which the company may contribute through its activities fall within the scope of the law on the duty of vigilance for parent companies and ordering companies,” the court said.

The city of Paris hailed the ruling as “a landmark decision in the history of French climate law”. “For the first time, a judge recognises that climate risks do indeed fall under the duty of vigilance owed by large corporations, and no fossil-fuel multinational can evade this responsibility,” Deputy Mayor Alice Timsit said.

“This is an important decision in these days of unprecedented heatwaves: fighting climate change also means fighting for a livable future in our daily lives,” the NGOs Notre Affaire a Tous, Sherpa and France Nature Environment said in a joint statement.

Oil cuts?

Company lawyers had argued during February hearings that the law did not cover global warming. But the group of NGOs that took TotalEnergies to court said the law’s reference to prevention of environmental risks encompasses both local pollution and climate change.

The plaintiffs specifically accused TotalEnergies of refusing to account for indirect emissions from end users, which they say amounted to 342 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024.

TotalEnergies argued that the law applied only to the company’s own operations and those of its contractors, not to customer activity. The court, however, said the company’s vigilance plan was “incomplete”. It gave TotalEnergies six months to amend it to include such emissions from end-users, known as Scope 3, along with unspecified “related measures”.

Published in Dawn, June 26, 2026