The oil and gas industry’s peak lobby group, Australian Petroleum Producers and Exploration Association (APPEA), has been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for allegedly false or misleading statements regarding the relative greenhouse gas emissions of coal and gas.
Lock the Gate and Comms Declare have asked the ACCC, through their lawyer, the Environmental Defenders Office, to investigate whether APPEA advertisements breach consumer laws by understating the gas industry’s greenhouse gas emissions and exaggerating the importance of gas to the Australian economy and households.
The groups allege APPEA’s marketing statements falsely claim that the emissions intensity of gas is 50% that of coal; gas is replacing coal’s share of electricity generation in Australia; gas generates 20% of electricity used in Australia; and APPEA is taking action consistent with achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
In response to those marketing statements, Lock the Gate and Comms Declare say that gas is about 60% as polluting as coal before other lifecycle emissions are counted; renewable energy is largely replacing coal-fired electricity; less than 6% of the National Electricity Market’s energy was generated by gas in the past financial year; and that APPEA is promoting the development of new gas projects, which is inconsistent with net zero by 2050.
APPEA makes other claims also alleged to be false including that gas represented 27% of Australia’s household energy consumption in 2020-2021 and that the production of blue hydrogen releases low levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The letter of complaint states the claims were part of a campaign by APPEA “to market fossil gas as a ‘clean’ energy source that is essential for the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and to sustain the ‘Australian way of life’.”
The ACCC complaint follows a ruling by Ad Standards Australia on June 28 that APPEA television ads in the same “family” of advertisements breached the Australian Association of National Advertisers’ (AANA) environmental codes. It is only the fourth complaint ever upheld by AANA on environmental grounds since 2011.
Lock the Gate spokesperson Nic Clyde said NSW is being urged to largely phase out gas by 2035, while the Victorian and ACT governments already have well-developed plans to get off gas.
“Predictably, APPEA’s response is to double-down on their promotion of fossil gas: a fuel that is damaging our health, bad for our bank balances, and dangerous for our climate," said Clyde.
“The only thing we can trust the gas industry to do is promote its own interests above Australia's.”
Comms Declare spokesperson Belinda Noble said she hopes this is a turning point in preventing greenwashing by coal, oil, and gas companies.
“Gas is mainly methane, which heats the atmosphere 84 times more than carbon dioxide over 20 years," she said.
“Advertising gas as being somehow ‘clean’ or ‘green’ is not only inaccurate — it is also immoral when global warming is causing record temperatures, death, and destruction around the globe.”
Comms Declare has released an ‘honest ad’ from APPEA to highlight the tactics and motivations behind the APPEA campaign.
EDO managing lawyer Kirsty Ruddock said greenwashing is dangerous because it delays action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and undermines competition and consumer trust in green or renewable products.
“APPEA’s statements are designed to make the public think gas is good for the environment, when in fact it is driving dangerous climate change," said Ruddock.
“It is clearly in the public interest to ensure big polluters and their peak bodies, such as APPEA, are held to account for their allegedly misleading or deceptive conduct.”
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