Greens urge super fund to dump Exxon

The Green Party is calling on the Government to stop the Cullen super fund investing in ExxonMobil, saying the oil company is financing groups that deny climate change.

"The New Zealand Superannuation Fund has its second-largest global equity holding in ExxonMobil, at $43 million, yet ExxonMobil is one of the major funders of the climate change denial industry," Greens co-leader Russel Norman said yesterday.

The Green Party's stance follows the British Royal Society writing to the US energy giant asking it to halt support for groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change".

The Royal Society's letter said ExxonMobil had given US$2.9 million ($4.42 million) to 39 groups that "have been misinforming the public about the science of climate change".

Peter Thornbury, the public affairs manager for Mobil Oil New Zealand, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, said the Royal Society had inaccurately and unfairly described what ExxonMobil did.

The company had been financing organisations that researched significant policy issues to promote informed discussion on issues directly relevant to it, Mr Thornbury said.

For instance, it was spending US$100 million on a global climate energy project at Stanford University looking at "breakthrough technologies" that could deliver large amounts of energy with lower carbon emissions.

Mr Thornbury said the company supported a range of organisations.

"They don't speak on our behalf and nor do we control their views and messages."

A spokesman for Finance Minister Michael Cullen said while the Government set the tone for the strategy, it was up to the fund to decide on individual investments.

New Zealand Superannuation Fund chief executive Paul Costello told NZPA the fund "won't invest in any company where the activity they undertake or the product they manufacture is not legal within New Zealand".

"So clearly the production of petroleum is absolutely legal in New Zealand and our policy would not therefore lead us to not invest in the company."

- NZPA