Washed Up
Activist against energetic companies: David and Goliath?
Dancers, climbers, giant collective wall painting, giant banner, gas station blockades… Since
October 2021, French activists of the NGO Extinction Rebellion Lyon have organised multiple large-
scale actions, targeting Total’s oil and gas company. These illegal -because non-declared- actions
seem to be the way environmental activists have chosen to make their voice heard in the fight
against greenwashing.
Bleuenn Robert
Friday, 17 th December 2021, between 300 and 400 activists were reunited in Lyon for what was the third part of a series of actions to denounce Total policy in environmental matters and ask for the end of the fossil fuels, big CO2 emitters, gas responsible, in large part, for global warning. Beside these revendications, Extinction Rebellion also wanted to denounce Total’s strategy of greenwashing.
In fact, the French oil and gas company is being pointed out by environmental organisations since
2015 and the Paris Agreement about climate. In 2016, the group announce new climate
commitments and sets up a new communication strategy. According to the humanitarian
organisation Oxfam, the group has invested 52 million dollars a year, which represent a third of its
communication budget. Total changes its name for TotalEnergies - implying a multi-energy group -
but continues to invest widely in fossil energies (still according to Oxfam, by 2030, Total will produce
twice as much fossil fuel as the International Panel on Climate Change recommends) which is clear
proof of bad faith for according to the activists. But for environmental activists, how to denounce
such strategies when you have the biggest firms in front of you?
Peaceful protests remain a solution for many. Greta Thunberg, Swedish initiator of the movement
Fridays for Future, is a perfect example. Last November, she called COP 26 in Glasgow a “global
greenwashing festival” during one of the numerous protest marches throughout the weekend. The
young activists also use widely social medias to protest and denounce these practices by sharing
pictures of youngsters around the world impacted by global warming. Organizations also set up large campaigns on social medias to alert about greenwashing with communication strategies designed to shock the public.
Hard-hitting actions and alternatives
But against the giants of the energy industry, their voices sometimes struggle to be heard. The truth is, Total but also Shell, one of the biggest oil companies in the world, are big firms with big resources.
A study from 2021 published in the scientific journal “Global Environmental Change” revealed that
Total and Elf (another French oil company that merged with Total in 1999) has made “pressure, with
success, against the politics that aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while seeking to develop an environmental credibility through voluntary commitments”. This strong lobbyism around the oil and gas industry sometimes pushes the activists to use less peaceful actions as seen with Extinction Rebellion. Hard-hitting actions are a way for these organizations to alert the public on the industrial groups strategies. The emergency of the situation and the large impact of these energy producers on the environment can explain this escalation. As a reminder, according to the Carbon majors report published in 2017, Total is one of the largest contributors to global warming in the world.
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Studies such as the one published by Oxfam but also initiating legal actions can be an alternative to put pressure on Total and others for them to change their policies and adopt real strategies in
environmental matters. In 2020, French association Notre Affaire à tous (Our common business) took Total to court asking the justice to force the firm to acknowledge the risks generated by its activities and to align itself with a trajectory compatible with the Paris Agreement objective to limit global warming to 1.5°C. If the court has not yet rendered a judgment in this case, things are moving in the right way.
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