Canadians are particularly disapproving of oil companies for their stance and actions on climate change. This level of concern reflects the tension between Canadians’ relatively high level of concern about climate change, and Canada’s actual poor climate change performance, much of which is related to the development of the tar sands. A number of Canadian public commentators, and organisations, are leading the debate about the environmental impacts of tar sands development.
In a nutshell
In each of Canada, England and the US, ‘Esso / Exxon’ is the most widely disapproved of company for its stance and actions on climate change. Shell is also quite widely disapproved of in Canada and England. Netting all oil companies together, we can see that in each country, ‘Big Oil’ is the most widely disapproved of industry sector when it comes to climate change.
Big Oil is particularly disapproved of in Canada where 8.1% of Canadians named an oil company as one they disapproved of for its stance/actions on climate change. This compares with 2.3% of English people and 4.7% of Americans. Amongst Climate Citizens, the proportions are higher on this issue - 13.3% of Canadian Climate Citizens, 4.7% of English Climate Citizens and 11.1% of American Climate Citizens disapprove of at least one oil company for its stance/actions on climate change.
Quebecers are particularly disapproving of oil companies - 12.6% did so. In contrast, 7.8% spoke approvingly of the efforts of Hydro-Quebec on climate change.
The study, run in late-September/early-October 2008, was conducted amongst nationally representative samples of over 1,000 people per country in Canada, England and the USA.
You can download the full press release in the PDF attachment at the bottom of this page.
Data for this press release comes from Environmental Choices Wave 1, Section report 3.g, Carbon Offsets & Business Reputations and from Section report 3.b, Organisations and Campaigns. Free summaries are available in files called Haddock EC_W10809 Free Summary 3g Carbon and Business.pdf and Haddock EC_W10809 Free Summary 3b Organisations and Campaigns.pdf. For more details about the section report covering business reputations, and to purchase, please use this link.
