Tag Archives: oil sands

Tar sands: Let’s not lose sight of the big, ugly picture…

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UK Tar Sands Network/Lush/People & Planet Valentines Day 'Oil Orgy' in Oxford

UK Tar Sands Network/Lush/People & Planet Valentines Day 'Oil Orgy' in Oxford

Who would’ve thought that EU transport legislation would be getting so many of us so worked-up this week?

As the EU prepares to vote on the Fuel Qualirty Directive (FQD) on Thursday, environmentalists around the UK are kicking up a fuss in support of a piece of legislation that has the potential to effectively ban tar sands oil imports from Europe, by classifying them as 23% more polluting than most conventional crudes.

Since People & Planet launched a letter-writing action last week, over 500 of you have let Under Secretary of State for Transport, Norman Baker, and his boss, Nick Clegg, know what you think of the UK’s plans to vote against the FQD.

We (and most of you who have written) have received a generic response from Clegg’s office. Like Baker’s replies (which we went on to debunk) when we launched an action to him last November, Clegg’s letter goes to great lengths to focus on technicalities. But first and foremost, Clegg’s reply avoids the bigger picture, which we want to make sure is not lost in the bickering.

  1. Tar sands are the dirtiest form of transport fuel in commercial production today. The oil industry is pushing hard to create markets for a product that will only ensure an unmanageable level of new carbon is released into the atmosphere, at a time when we must be drastically cutting back. If the EU doesn’t enact legislation that reflects this, Canada and its partners will exploit any loophole that will help lock us into a carbon intensive future, at a time where investment in renewable energy sources is desperately needed. Each day without EU legislation is a day that plans can continue to be made to create a new European market for dirty oil. Canada recently left the Kyoto Protocol, with its relatively modest targets for emissions reductions. In case we needed any clearer indications, this is not a regime that the ‘greenest government ever’ should be allying itself with, as we fight for the planet’s survival.
  2. The tar sands industry in Canada, beyond its immense environmental costs, is having devastating impacts on local indigenous peoples, wildlife, air and water in Northern Alberta. Keeping the EU’s doors open to tar sands is exactly the kind of market signal that will help justify the quadrupling of existing tar sands operations (which have been thrown into significant limbo since Obama vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline, with the US as the biggest beneficiary of current tar sands oil production). Indigenous peoples, like those from the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, with whom we have worked closely in the struggle against this devastating industry, are going to bear the brunt of the impact if expansion is deemed economically justified. Baker and Clegg have the potential to be a part of stopping this, if they choose to…

These are the kinds of questions that are being shied away from – the big issues that the government is pretending are either not their concern, or well outside of their powers.

Instead, they focus on:

  • A counter-proposal which they haven’t filed any of the necessary paperwork for, so is not actually an option for Thursday’s vote, and would thus take considerably longer to put into action as a result (even if it was a stronger alternative).
  • Current EU fuel usage being primarily conventional crudes, while ignoring the fact that these sources are becoming scarce and that much higher polluting unconventional fuels (like tar sands and shale gas) are the waiting in the wings to fill the quickly emerging gap, if not urgently legislated against.
  • The most polluting fuels the EU currently uses, which, even at their very worst, are barely on par with the most carbon efficient tar sands oil.
  • Canadian tar sands apparently being ‘singled out’ by the FQD, though the rules would apply to currently unexploited tar sands in Venezuela, Russia, Madagascar and elsewhere, as well. Further, shale gas is also included in the FQD, as carbon values associated with a range of the worst polluting ‘conventional’ fuels will be added by 2015. There is nothing in the phantom counter-proposal that indicates how not labelling tar sands now, would assist in labelling other high-pollutant fuels sooner.

So the response has been a typically big ‘P’ political combination of misplaced emphasis, denial of responsibility and deflection of the core questions at stake. And this criticism has been echoed by politicians across the political spectrum – from Labour’s Shadow Transpor Secretary, Maria Eagle, to Tory MP Zac Goldsmith, and fellow LibDem Chris Davies MEP – all seeing the government’s position as out of step with current realities and the seriousness of the issues at stake.

We would like to ask for more from our elected representatives on this critical issue.

Liam Barrington-Bush

Tar Sands-Free Campaign Manager, People & Planet

LSE: Not quite as ‘Tar Sands-Free’ as they should be…

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(This is a bit late posting, having been written a week ago, but I promise the issues haven’t fallen off the table since!)

People & Planet activists picket LSE tar sands event

People & Planet activists picket LSE tar sands event

I’m wearing a suit. This is not something I do a lot, but as it turned it out, it was probably the main reason I had the chance to call Canada’s Natural Resources Minister, Joe Oliver to account, for he and his Government’s attempt to convince LSE students that Canadian tar sands are an ‘ethical’ and ‘responsible’ source of energy for the future.

The LSE – to their discredit – chose to host the Minister, after being approached by the Canadian Government as part of their declared lobbying push to undermine European climate legislation. The public university – who regularly host multiple speakers at their events – chose to let the Minister speak unopposed, on one of the most hotly-contested global environmental issues of our generation. People & Planet, as part of our Tar Sands-Free Universities campaign, see this as a major insult to the countless victims of the Alberta tar sands industry, given the Canadian Government’s track record of ignoring and discrediting the critical issues facing First Nations Canadians and the climate as a whole as a result of the industry.

So Oliver’s presence was inappropriate for a university to host as an ‘educational’ event to begin with. But from the point that we arrived (about 10 of us, from LSE People & Planet and the UK Tar Sands Network), we were greeted by a police presence at the front doors of the venue and a heavy security presence inside, which included body searches and refusal to allow any personal bags in the venue. Having been to a half-dozen LSE public lectures before, this was the first time I’d seen anything like this. Even when I saw the President of Ecuador speak at LSE last year, there had been no parallel precautions taken.

The Chair, Dr Richard Perkins, said that he was keen to have a debate after the lecture, given the contentious nature of the issue, but then prefaced questions with ‘this isn’t a chance to make a statement’…

The event started late, due to the extensive security checks, and was closed early, as too much of the crowd had become vocally critical of the misinformation coming from the Minister. Again, debate was not what the LSE appeared interested in hosting… If I hadn’t broken protocols and jumped up early on to present Oliver with an award for ‘Greenwash Propagandist of the Year’, relatively little criticism would have made it to the forefront.

And unsurprisingly, the Minister’s speech was nothing short of propaganda. Nearly every statement was untrue or misleading, and omitted even mentioning issues as significant as elevated cancer rates amongst First Nations communities, or First Nations legal challenges that tar sands expansion is hinging upon. Some highlights include:

  • Oliver’s claim: ‘Canada is being unfairly discriminated against via the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive’
  • The truth: Tar sands are one of several ‘unconventional fuels’ (including shale gas and liquid coal) that the European Commission has classified as high emissions fuels. The move is clearly an attempt to regulate fuel that is more harmful to the environment than crude oil. There is no basis to claim that Alberta tar sands have been ‘singled-out’.
  • Oliver’s claim: ‘Tar sands aren’t as bad as other fuels the EU allows import of’
  • The truth: Oliver compared Alberta tar sands to Russian, Mexican, Nigerian and Venezuelan high emissions fuels, saying that tar sands were much better than many of these. In truth, the best tar sands, are on par with or worse than, all but the very worst Venezuelan heavy crude and Nigerian flaring. The other countries fuels produce far lower emissions. Tar sands really are *that bad*!
  • Oliver’s claim: ‘In situ tar sands extraction is much less destructive than mining’
  • The truth: While in situ mining doesn’t use as much water, or scar the surface of the Earth in the way open caste mining does, the emissions associated with the process are on average 3x higher than that of mining tar sands, and 5x higher than drilling traditional crude. The Minister and the industry’s claim that the in situ process is more environmentally sound is at best a distortion of the facts, and at worst, an outright lie.

(Details of the above claims can be found here and here).

After the talk, a scheduled media phone-in with the Minister, was cancelled without explanation. We might be able to take a little bit of credit for that one. We also managed to get covered in newspapers and blogs across Canada, as well as in the Times of India (the largest English language newspaper in the world), hopefully throwing a bit of a wrench into the Canadian Government’s attempt to go abroad and paint the tar sands in a positive light.

While LSE may still be a few steps from calling itself a ‘Tar Sands-Free University’ (though our activists there will be pushing to make it one!), we an important question for the university, in light of its choice to host the Minister:

Given the factual inaccuracy of a range of the Minister’s comments and the highly-political agenda he was promoting, how can the LSE justify using student and public money to help a foreign government promote a single perspective, unopposed?

Speakers like Oliver are relatively rare, in terms of the ways that universities support the most destructive project on Earth. They may be banking with tar sands financiers like RBS/NatWest; they might be doing research into tar sands technologies for BP or Shell; their staff’ pensions might be invested in any of these companies… So don’t hesitate to get in touch if you want to get involved in making your university or college ‘Tar Sands-Free’!