TotalEnergies Q3 report is another Profits Over People and Planet report

TotalEnergies recently announced a 5% increase in oil and gas production and $6.7 billion in third quarter profits. The company is also plowing ahead with a controversial East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, which tramples human rights and biodiversity in Uganda and Tanzania - revealing where its true priorities lie - and it's not with vulnerable communities or averting climate catastrophe.

EACOP contradicts TotalEnergies' rhetoric on climate action and sustainable development. It’s increasingly becoming clear that when profits are at stake, people and planet clearly take a back seat. It explains why while reporting surging income and shareholder payouts, TotalEnergies' renewable energy business delivered less than 5% of earnings. Oil and gas remains core, comprising over 95% of Total's business.

This is despite clear warnings from scientists that new fossil fuel projects are incompatible with limiting disastrous warming. Total Energies seems unbothered by the hypocrisy of claiming climate leadership while emboldening the fossil fuel status quo.

That status quo is also deepening inequality and exploiting those with least power. In Uganda and Tanzania, thousands of people are being displaced from ancestral lands to make way for EACOP. Many are left destitute after receiving undervalued compensation or empty promises from TotalEnergies and its government partners.

As TotalEnergies toasts rising returns, host communities struggle with income loss and food insecurity.

This is one of the reasons we believe world leaders at COP28 must confront the imbalance of power that lets corporations like TotalEnergies continue business as usual while lives hang in the balance. That starts with rejecting the influence of big polluters over climate policy.

Then regulating banks, insurers and investors enabling their unchecked expansion. And redirecting subsidies from fossil fuels to just, community-driven renewable solutions.

TotalEnergies will not shift course on its own. It has made clear profits trump all else, whatever the human and environmental cost. Now pressure must come from outside - regulatory, financial and social.

Business as usual cannot continue. COP28 must rally the world to finally hold fossil fuel majors accountable. Standing up to corporate power is the only way to achieve climate justice and an equitable, livable future. The stakes for people and planet could not be higher.