Standing and Remedies in Climate Litigation:  How TotalEnergies Echoes KlimaSeniorinnen

The TotalEnergies climate case, whose merits were partially decided by the Paris Judicial Court in June, illustrates how associations may be the gateway through which rights-based climate cases survive. In that case, local governments and NGOs originally brought claims together against the French oil giant. They argued that TotalEnergies’ statutorily-required due diligence plan was incomplete because it didn’t incorporate risks to human rights and the environment connected to the company’s indirect emissions.

However, in a pivotal 2024 procedural ruling, the Paris Court of Appeal treated the standing of the local governments restrictively. The Court required those claimants to show they experienced a sufficiently particularized impact from climate change, a threshold most local government claimants failed to meet. On the other hand, most of the NGOs who brought the case retained standing based on their organizational purposes.

In this way, the case echoes the procedural posture of the groundbreaking KlimaSeniorinnen case decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in 2024. As my co-authors and I noted then, individual applicants who alleged Switzerland failed to protect them from climate harms were found inadmissible under the ECtHR’s strict “victim” status requirement. Meanwhile, an association proceeded under different criteria.

If this emerging two-track approach to standing solidifies across jurisdictions, there are likely to be two material consequences for rights-based climate litigation. First, the focus and remedial pathways of the cases are likely to be narrowed. Second, associations will be left to play a role mediating the interests of individual persons and communities affected by climate change.

TotalEnergies: Admissibility of Local Government Claimants

The TotalEnergies case has been hailed as a watershed for corporate-climate accountability. In it, NGOs and local governments sued TotalEnergies under two preventive frameworks, one derived from France’s Duty of Vigilance Law and the other from a Civil Code provision on ecological damage. Among the original claimants were representatives of 12 French communes, an inter-municipal authority within Greater Paris and the region of Centre-Val de Loire. The plaintiffs requested that the company identify, prevent and mitigate climate-related harms from greenhouse gas emissions, including by stopping new oil and gas exploration. TotalEnergies countered that mitigating climate risks was not required under either law. Even if there was such a requirement, the risks that emerge from its indirect emissions were outside the scope of the Duty of Vigilance Law. Those indirect emissions, which arise from consumer activities — such as burning the company’s gasoline, diesel and jet fuel — represent the majority of emissions attributable to the company [TotalEnergies, Universal Registration Document 2024 (2025), p. 20].  

A less analyzed aspect of the case is how admissibility became a plaintiff sorting device. Before this recent merits decision, the Paris Court of Appeal had clarified that all plaintiffs must demonstrate an “interest” in the case for their claims to be admissible. The bar for demonstrating this interest was high for local government claimants, which needed to show that their territories would suffer specific territorial harm from climate change. The Court deduced that admissible plaintiffs should suffer a harm different from generalized climate impacts. Associations could show an interest through reference to their organizational missions.

In the absence of a showing of specific harm, the original local government plaintiffs’ claims were declared inadmissible. General exposure to the negative effects of climate change was deemed insufficient. (The City of Paris, which voluntarily intervened in the proceedings, was admitted under a distinct — but similarly exacting — test.) Meanwhile, most of the NGOs remained in the case.

The case was sent back to the Paris Judicial Court for merits consideration, and, on 25 June, the trial court ordered TotalEnergies to revise its vigilance plan. The company was also ordered to contribute to the remaining plaintiffs’ legal expenses. (TotalEnergies has since appealed.)

KlimaSeniorinnen: Admissibility of Individuals

In KlimaSeniorinnen, a similar two-track sorting took place. In that case, four elderly women claimed Switzerland violated the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to mitigate climate change. As a result, the women suffered health impacts. A Swiss association to which the women belonged simultaneously applied to the Court for protection.

There, the ECtHR took the opportunity to articulate particular admissibility rules for climate change cases. To obtain “victim” status, individuals needed to demonstrate “a high intensity of exposure” to the adverse effects of climate change, plus a pressing need for the Court’s protection. Associations, on the other hand, could obtain locus standi if lawfully established in the respondent State (or having standing to act there). Further, the associations were required to show that they had a mission to advance climate change protection and human rights. They also had to be genuinely qualified to act for their members or for other affected individuals.

The Court determined that the individual applicants failed to show sufficient exposure to trigger a need for individual protection. The fact that there was a general risk of harm from climate change for people in their position was not enough for victim status. In addition, the applicants hadn’t sufficiently distinguished their situations from the situation of the general public. The association, on the other hand, was admitted to litigate the case.

In the end, the Court required Switzerland to implement changes to its climate framework, under the supervision of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers. The State was further asked to pay the association’s costs and expenses.

Who Gets In (and What Drops Out)

The cases are not entirely the same. KlimaSeniorinnen is a public‑law challenge to state inaction brought before a regional human rights court. TotalEnergies is a private‑law corporate due diligence case before a domestic court in France. However, the two share important similarities. On paper, the laws under which both cases were brought enable directly affected parties—and interested associations—to bring claims. In addition, in both systems, the outcome of the cases can be remedial or prospective.

The overlooked analogy between the two cases is how standing decisions go on to condition the remedy. Ultimate party configurations help shape what the cases are about and how they are eventually resolved. Standing rules can narrow the claims so that the substance is less about the individual harms to natural persons and their communities. Those determinations can also direct outcomes to forward-looking, policy-oriented remedies. A procedural decision about admissibility also has representational consequences: It puts the responsibility of articulating claims primarily on NGOs.

There are, of course, plausible rationales behind courts’ close guarding of standing. For climate cases, in particular, stringent standing rules respond to a potentially limitless class of claimants. As a practical matter, it also enables courts to address a collective problem without resorting to actio popularis. (In TotalEnergies, the Court of Appeal cited statutory constraints as well.)

Nevertheless, the consequences of these procedural decisions should not be overlooked. In TotalEnergies, excluding the original local government claimants meant screening out entities that are formally responsible for territorial governance, infrastructure and adapting to climate impacts. In KlimaSeniorinnen, the case primarily focused on questions of state climate policy rather than on the individual complainants’ health concerns.

The outcomes of the cases also became forward-looking and less specific. In both cases, structural changes were required, but the orders didn’t prescribe how to carry them out. With associations as the remaining litigants, the remedial approach tended toward systemic obligations and frameworks rather than individualized forms of redress. The prospective nature of the remedies, in turn, triggered concerns about judicial restraint. In TotalEnergies, for instance, the Judicial Court ordered the company to revise its vigilance plan but didn’t set specific emissions targets. In KlimaSeniorinnen, the ECtHR required Switzerland to improve its climate framework without dictating how. In both circumstances, the courts expressed institutional concerns about stepping into the role of state policymakers or corporate management.

This is not to say that structural outcomes are a drawback. In other writing, I have suggested that system-wide remedies can broaden the overall impact of rights-based litigation. Especially if the remedies catalyze wider engagement with affected communities and impact more than just the parties to the case, structural outcomes might benefit wider groups of people. However, such a conclusion does not necessarily mean that individualized analyses and remedies should be precluded.

There is a hypothetical possibility that the associations could have requested compensation or just satisfaction for climate harms in both cases (for example, a monetary award beyond legal expenses). None of the associations in either case sought this relief. (One could imagine vigorous defenses to such a request, particularly related to causation and individualized harm.) Nevertheless, in KlimaSeniorinnen, the individual applicants did ask for monetary compensation. However, the ECtHR could not deliberate on this request because the individuals were declared inadmissible. Since KlimaSeniorinnen, the ECtHR has reiterated the same demanding victim-status criteria in several climate admissibility decisions, with similar outcomes.

Another point worth making: If communities are systematically required to meet a high participatory threshold that they can’t ultimately satisfy, rights-based climate litigation is likely to consolidate around NGO-led claims. This dynamic positions NGOs as functional gatekeepers.

Again, this kind of associational representation has real advantages. As both cases reflect, associations are mandated to undertake advocacy and representation. They may also be well positioned for success. As others have long recognized, parties with resources, institutional knowledge and repeat interactions with the legal system tend to have competitive advantages in court. At the same time, limiting standing to NGOs alone also makes them responsible for representing heterogeneous interests. Institutional litigants operate with representational and organizational constraints—including those related to their membership, strategic priorities, and funding imperatives—which can make them imperfect substitutes for individuals and communities. As I explore in ongoing work, it’s worth interrogating whether this kind of litigation should rest on the shoulders of associations alone.

Conclusion

Read together, TotalEnergies and KlimaSeniorinnen show how procedural choices can push rights-based climate litigation toward association-driven, injunction-focused outcomes—and away from individualized, reparative claims.

Standing determinations aren’t neutral. When individuals and local communities are screened out, associations become the main (or only) voices left in the case. Without admitting directly affected parties, individualized findings of harm and individualized forms of redress also fall away.

With associations as remaining litigants, cases become primarily about forward-looking, structural remedies, such as changing frameworks or policies. This outcome isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, it could expand the impact of the cases. However, courts and observers should be clear about the trade-offs.