Following on from the Tar Sands White Paper presented to Union Parliament, I would like to hear your opinions and feedback on the matter, so please leave any in the comment section and I will place suggestions in the proposal.
White Paper:
What are Tar Sands?
Canada’s Tar Sands are the biggest energy project in the world, currently producing 1.3 million
barrels of oil a day. Largely located in Alberta, the Tar Sands deposits are distributed over an
area of 140,000 km² – an area larger than England. Canada has the second largest oil reserves
in the world, after Saudi Arabia, and is the biggest supplier of oil to the US, the world’s largest
oil consumer. Tar sands deposits also exist outside of Canada.
Already, millions of barrels of Tar Sands oil have been extracted from under the Canadian
wilderness, producing three to five times as many greenhouse gas emissions as conventional
oil extraction and using enough natural gas every day to heat 3.2 million Canadian homes. Add
to this the mass deforestation the project is causing and it becomes clear that the Tar Sands
must be shut down if we are serious about tackling disastrous climate change. In fact, leading
climate scientist James Hansen has stated that runaway climate change will be almost inevitable
if Tar Sands extraction is allowed to continue.
The effects of the Alberta Tar Sands on local First Nations communities are devastating. (See
for example this Polaris Institute report on the water crisis facing First Nations). The Tar Sands
development project has created toxic tailing ponds so huge they are visible from space, leaking
poisons into the local water supply. Indigenous rights being violated and livelihoods and futures
are being destroyed. Communities on land where Tar Sands extraction has been imposed are
experiencing disturbingly high rates of rare forms of cancer and auto-immune diseases.
UK Involvement
Although very little Tar Sands oil is currently flowing through UK petrol pumps, large amounts
of investment is coming from UK banks and corporations. Shell is already heavily involved, and
BP have recently announced their entry into the Tar Sands via the Sunrise project.. The Royal
Bank of Scotland is the world’s 7th largest investor, using taxpayers’ money to fund climate
disaster. HSBC and Barclays are also major financers.
Little background in current proposed legislation
Currently very little tar sands oil is flowing through UK petrol pumps. Yet few European citizens
are aware that our governments are in the midst of free trade negotiations, known as CETA,
that could significantly boost Europe’s involvement in the world’s most destructive project.
Luckily the EU is also in the process of passing the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD). This legislation
could ensure tar sands are strongly discouraged from entering the EU because of their high
carbon-intensity – an effective ban on increased imports of the dirty fuel. However, aggressive
lobbying from the Canadian government and oil companies is aiming to block this move.
What is CETA?
The proposed Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA)
threatens to undermine stricter tar sands regulation in Canada and stronger climate policies in
Europe. The deal could pave the way for increased tar sands oil imports into Europe and give
dramatic new powers to Europe’s multinational oil companies. It could trample over Indigenous
rights and undermine a range of social and environmental legislation on both sides of the
Atlantic.
Perhaps most controversially, CETA includes an ‘investment chapter’ that would grant Canadian
and European companies the right to sue governments when environmental policies interfere
with their profits. Similar rules in NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) have
already been used extensively by US firms to challenge environmental and resource-related
policy in Canada. Canadian firms have also used these tools in other bilateral trade deals to
attack environmental and mining-related decisions by foreign governments. Several EU-based
oil companies including Shell, BP and Total already have major investments in the tar sands and
would benefit from the proposed CETA investment rules. Under these rules, any attempt by a
Canadian government to regulate the extent or pace of tar sands development by EU-based
companies would be vulnerable to challenge.
Furthermore, Canada has been invoking CETA to argue that the Fuel Quality Directive, if passed
to include tar sands, would be an illegal trade barrier. In order to protect the EU’s ability to
make strong effective climate policy, CETA must include a clause that carves out the FQD and
future EU climate legislation, so that it is protected from any such legal challenge.
What is the Fuel Quality Directive?
The EU is negotiating a Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) with the aim of encouraging the use of
low carbon transport fuels and discouraging the use of high-emission crude oil. It aims to
reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions from road transport by 6% before 2020. A recent
independent study carried out by Stanford University for the European Commission concluded
that oil from tar sands leads to 23% higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude
oil. Based on this research it has been suggested that the FQD be amended to label oil sourced
from the tar sands as more polluting than conventional oil. With an explicit reference
acknowledging tar sands as a high-emission fuel, the FQD would have the effect of closing
off the European market to tar sands oil. Of most immediate concern to Canada is the
precedent this would set for other important existing markets – such as US states. It could
also have a ripple effect on preventing tar sands extraction in other parts of the world, such as
Madagascar.
Unsurprisingly, the Canadian government, with the support of European oil companies, has
been lobbying hard to prevent the EU discriminating between conventional oil and tar sands.
Canada began by trying to call the science into disrepute, by insisting tar sands oil is no
more polluting than conventional oil, and invoking the spectre of legal challenges for unfair
discrimination under CETA and the WTO. Once the EU had secured a peer-reviewed study
from Stanford University confirming the highly carbon-intensive nature of tar sands extraction,
Canada switched tack. It is now stalling the FQD by claiming tar sands shouldn’t be singled
out until every other source of possible transport fuel is measured for carbon-intensity – which
could take years!
In the meantime, the decision over inclusion of tar sands – which has been approved by the
EU Climate Commission – now has to go to member states for consultation. Currently the UK is
supporting the Canadian position, and lobbying other member states to agree to an ‘alternative
methodology’ which would not only further delay the process, but would be less effective at
banning tar sands. It would be tragic if we allowed our own government to stand in the way of
progressive climate legislation that would genuinely scupper the expansion of an industry which
is devastating ecosystems, killing communities and contributing to climate change.
Possible Action from our Students’ Union
● Support and promote the current anti-Tar-Sands campaign
● Lobby the University to not invest in companies that invest in the Tar Sands
Owen Jones
University of Leicester Students' Union Environment Officer
