Greenpeace amused at negative survey oil industry releases about itself

Tuesday, February 13: Greenpeace is calling oil industry efforts to put a positive spin on a just-released public perception survey "desperate and misleading".

Today the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ) released results of an annual industry reputation survey, and Greenpeace climate campaigner, Kate Simock, says they’re less than favourable.

"We’re confused about why PEPANZ would want to draw attention to this survey. It shows that an overwhelming number of people don’t trust the oil and gas industry and have an unfavourable view of it. Anyone who took the time to read the results would see that the oil industry is losing its public mandate on almost every point," she says.

"The way that PEPANZ has publicly portrayed this survey is desperate and misleading."

The survey shows that only 13% of respondents trust the oil and gas industry, while almost half of those surveyed don’t trust them at all, Simcock says.

"It’s also amusing to see that PEPANZ, in their media release, have tried to hide the fact that many more people than not feel unfavourably about the oil industry, and have instead tried to put a positive spin on the results, with some of the numbers not adding up," she says.

"While PEPANZ is boasting publicly that 60% of respondents have either a favourable or neutral view of our industry, closer inspection reveals that what the data actually shows is a quite different truth - just 19% of people actually think of the industry favourably, compared to 32% unfavourably."

Simcock says a positive from the survey is that participants have a rapidly growing concern about climate change.

"By far the greatest reason people don’t think favourably about the oil and gas industry is that oil is bad for the environment and increases climate change. The growing awareness of climate issues, even since last year, is significant," she says.

"We can’t afford to burn most of the fossil fuel reserves we know about if we’re to avoid dangerous climate change. All new oil and gas needs to be left in the ground. New Zealanders are increasingly seeing that."

ENDS

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