A Belgian court on Wednesday adjourned a case pitting French oil giant TotalEnergies against a farmer seeking compensation for damage to his land caused by climate change while another hearing involving the company takes place in Paris.
Hugues Falys, from Hainaut in western Belgium, took TotalEnergies to court on the grounds that the French group is Belgium's leading refiner and distributor of petroleum products.
Falys, who is supported by activist groups including Greenpeace and food rights organisation FIAN, says the firm can be held liable for global warming because of emissions generated when its products are burned - a claim rejected by TotalEnergies which accuses pressure groups of "instrumentalising the judiciary."
The lawsuit was filed in 2024 before the Tournai business court in western Belgium. Lawyers for both sides presented their cases during hearings between November 2025 and January 2026.
The court was due to give its verdict on Wednesday on the country's first climate case brought against a multinational company. Instead the court opted to suspend proceedings until September - after the expected conclusion of the Paris case in June.
"The decision to adjourn the proceedings was made in the interest of ensuring a fully informed debate," the court said in a statement.
"The court retains full jurisdiction over the entire dispute and retains full discretion in its assessment of both the facts and the law for the remainder of the proceedings," it added. The next hearing was set for 9 September.
The French case mentioned by the Belgian court was brought against TotalEnergies by several NGOs and the city of Paris.
They want TotalEnergies to stop developing new hydrocarbon projects and cut back oil and gas production.
The Paris plaintiffs accuse the firm of having failed to properly consider environmental risks under a 2017 law that imposes a "duty of vigilance" on large companies.
TotalEnergies and its accusers are at odds over the reach of the definition of the environment - whether it means risks on a local scale such as a polluted river or more broadly global warming. The energy firm's lawyers argued global warming is beyond the scope of that law.
NGOs seek climate trial of French oil giant TotalEnergies
In the Belgian case, Falys is seeking €130,000 euros in damages for four extreme weather events that struck his farm between 2016 and 2020.
First a storm destroyed his strawberry and potato crops, then three periods of drought hurt fodder production, affecting cattle in turn.
But Falys and his backers are also seeking much broader action from TotalEnergies on countering climate change - notably for TotalEnergies to stop investing in new fossil-fuel projects.
The goals of the lawsuit are "reparation and transformation", said Belgium's human rights league, which is also supporting the complaint.
Lawyers for TotalEnergies told the Tournai court that it was absurd to single out a particular firm over the pace of the transition to different forms of energy.
They said the company accounts for less than 2 percent of the oil and gas sector.
"It's a bit easy to blame energy producers for pollution and warming," said company lawyer Françoise Labrousse during a hearing in December.
"TotalEnergies doesn't sell tractors, cars or boilers," she added.
She told the court that the group's strategy to meet the EU's goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 was ambitious and effective.
