Paris, France – According to new estimate calculations by Greenpeace France, released just days before COP27, TotalEnergies’ carbon emissions could be almost four times higher than what the company is reporting. In the report, titled ‘TotalEnergies’ carbon footprint: accounts are not good’, researchers recalculated the greenhouse gas emissions of French oil and gas major TotalEnergies.[1]
François Chartier, oil campaigner at Greenpeace France, said:
“The results are shocking. TotalEnergies just posted record profits amid record high gas prices, while at the same time it appears to be dramatically underreporting its emissions and downplaying its role in driving the climate crisis. This report brings TotalEnergies’ entire climate strategy and carbon neutrality ambitions for 2050 into question. In view of this new estimate of Total’s emissions, these goals seem downright unrealistic.”
In 2019, TotalEnergies reported emissions of 455 millions of tonnes of CO2e. Greenpeace France’s estimate is four times higher: 1 billion 637 million and 648 thousand tonnes of CO2e. Greenpeace France based its calculations on the reference year of 2019 to ensure that there is no bias related to the COVID-19 health crisis. This overall estimate is not exhaustive as some sectors remain potentially undervalued.
To align its activity with its climate strategy and its climate neutrality objectives, TotalEnergies must stop investing in new oil and gas projects, starting with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), the Mozambique LNG project and the Arctic 2 LNG Terminal under construction in Russia.
Greenpeace France has shared these findings with the French Financial Markets Authority (AMF). The AMF has authority to issue sanctions against TotalEnergies for any contradictions, inaccuracies, or significant omissions that these new estimates of TotalEnergies’ real climate impact reveal.
TotalEnergies is among the top 20 global fossil fuel companies whose joint exploitation of global oil, gas and coal resources have been directly linked to more than a third of all greenhouse gas emissions in our times.[2] Last week, the company announced record profits.[3]
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Notes
[1] Greenpeace France decided to carry out a new calculation of the carbon footprint of TotalEnergies because the oil and gas major provides few details on its method of calculating its own emissions. In addition to annual reporting lacking transparency, TotalEnergies communicates figures much lower than those of other oil and gas majors such as the Anglo-Dutch company Shell. By way of comparison, while Shell’s fossil fuel production and petroleum product sales volumes were respectively 1.2 and 1.6 times higher than those of TotalEnergies in 2019, Shell announced emissions of 1 billion 667 million tonnes of CO2e that year, i.e. almost four times that of TotalEnergies. Shell plc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended December 31, 2021
To redo this calculation, Greenpeace France worked with consulting firm Factor-X, that specialises in calculating the greenhouse gas emissions of companies. Factor-X considered the climate impact of TotalEnergies to be linked to all of the activities generating physical flows of goods and producing turnover. To convert volumes into GHG emissions, Greenpeace France used the public database of emission factors of the ADEME (French environment agency), the Base Carbone.
[2] Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions
[3] TotalEnergies announced Thursday, October 27 a net profit of 6.6 billion dollars (6.5 billion euros) in the third quarter of 2022.
Full report (in French) available from Greenpeace France.
Contacts:
Greenpeace France, Cécile Cailliez: 0033 6 13 07 04 29
Greenpeace International Press Desk: [email protected], +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)
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