Brussels, March 16, 2011 – The EU will today come under renewed pressure to effectively ban the world’s most climate polluting transport fuel from Europe. A coalition of environmental organisations has been campaigning for the European Union’s Fuel Quality Directive to address the significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) resulting from tar sands oil, which would effectively stop the controversial fuel, primarily produced in Alberta, Canada entering Europe.
The coalition, comprising The Co-operative, Friends of the Earth Europe, Greenpeace, Transport & Environment and WWF, will today present the Parliament with an EU citizen’s petition signed by over 15,000 people and calling on them to ‘keep tar sands out of Europe’. Support has come from an influential cross-party group of MEPs on the Parliament’s Environment Committee.
Article 7a of the 2009 Fuel Quality Directive sets a legally binding six per cent GHG reduction target for Europe’s transport fuels by 2020. Proposals for how this will be achieved are currently being finalised by the European Commission before being presented to the Parliament for agreement in coming weeks. Originally the Commission indicated that it would give tar sands oil a greenhouse gas emissions factor 23% higher than for conventional oil. But following lobbying by the Canadian government and oil industry all reference to a separate figure was dropped, though it was maintained for other unconventional fuels such as coal-to-liquid.
The campaigners want the tar sands value to be reinstated in the final proposals, to recognise that tar sand fuels emit at least 23 per cent more GHGs than conventional oil. They are also calling on Parliament to reject the Commission’s proposals if it fails to make these changes.
Linda McAvan MEP, who sits on the Parliament’s Environment Committee said: “We welcome the ‘keep tar sands out of Europe’ citizen’s petition and campaign, which reinforces our resolve to clean up Europe’s transport fuels. Today our clear message to the Commission is that its proposals must address high carbon tar sands fuels. Failure to recognise their substantially higher emissions would jeopardise the Commission’s proposals when they come to Parliament.”
Paul Monaghan, Head of Sustainability and Social Goals at The Co-operative said: “Failure to address tar sands emissions would undermine the whole objective of this landmark climate change legislation. If Europe stands up for cleaner fuels and a low carbon future by rectifying the directive, it would signal to oil companies and their investors that tar sands expansion is a risky business.”
The extraction and production of tar sands oil is very energy intensive and emits on average three times more GHGs than for conventional oil. From a lifecycle perspective (from extraction through to vehicle combustion), these fuels emit between 18% and 49% more GHGs compared to the EU average for conventional oil. A recent study released by the Commission itself found the average GHG intensity of tar sands fuels to be 23% higher.
Canada’s tar sands are the world’s second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia. Production is currently 1.5 million barrels of oil per day with the oil industry calling for $379 billion of investment to increase production to 4 million barrels by 2025. Campaigners state that fully exploiting the tar sands would be sufficient alone to take us to the brink of runaway climate change.
Tar sands oil is not only a high carbon fuel but its extraction is damaging vast areas of pristine wilderness through deforestation and pollution, threatening the traditional way of life of the indigenous First Nation Cree.
As part of The Co-operative’s Toxic Fuels campaign to halt tar sands expansion it is also touring a dramatic street gallery called Tarnished Earth, which will be outside of the European Parliament in Brussels throughout March. The exhibition by photographer Jiri Rezac tells the story of how Canada’s magnificent boreal forest is being destroyed by the rush to exploit tar sands. It will be officially opened today by Jo Leinen, Chair of the Parliament’s Environment Committee, who will participate with other MEPs on the Committee in the petition hand-in to Parliament.
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Notes to editors:
1. Photographs forming part of the Tarnished Earth street gallery are available to accompany press coverage. See: http://www.tarnishedearth.co.uk/see
2. Canada has 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves in tar sands deposits; this is second only to Saudi Arabia’s conventional oil reserves. Oil companies have announced plans to increase production from today’s 1.5 million barrels of oil per day to over 7.0 million per day. Every major oil company currently has operations in Canada’s tar sands or plans to develop them, including Shell and BP.
3. Current levels of tar sands imports into the EU are low, however, the expansion of pipeline and refining infrastructure in the United States, as well as the plans of the oil industry to increase extraction in Alberta, means that without intervention there could be a significant rise in the import of tar sands-based fuels into the EU in the near future.
4. Oil companies expanding their tar sands operations point to increasing demand for their products. However, the International Energy Agency’s ‘World Energy Outlook 2009’ points out that a tripling of tar sands production over the next 20 years would only fit with their business-as-usual ‘reference scenario’. This scenario would lead to in excess of 1000 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 and dangerous levels of climate change with an average global temperature rise of 6°C.
5. The Co-operative co-filed shareholder resolutions at the 2010 AGMs of BP and Royal Dutch Shell. The resolutions called upon the companies to disclose the financial, environmental and social risks associated with tar sands exploitation, citing amongst other issues GHG intensity and anticipated regulation of GHG emissions. They attracted significant investor support with 15% and 11% opposing management respectively by either voting for or abstaining on the resolutions.
6. The Co-operative has been campaigning to halt the expansion of tar sands exploitation as part of its Toxic Fuels campaign since July 2008. In addition to engaging with oil companies and politicians, it is also supporting the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, an indigenous community whose traditional territories are being destroyed by tar sands developments in violation of their constitutionally protected treaty rights. The Beaver Lake Cree have therefore commenced a legal challenge to protect their environment and halt new developments. The Co-operative’s own donations and those of its members and customers have so far raised over £200,000 for the Beaver Lake Cree’s legal fight. For more information on the campaign see: www.goodwithmoney.co.uk/toxicfuels
7. The EU Citizen’s Petition reads: “We call upon the European Parliament to ensure the Fuel Quality Directive achieves its goals of “encouraging the use of lower GHG intensity fuels” and “reducing GHG emissions from fossil fuel pathways” by ensuring the implementing provisions of Article 7a classify fuels derived from tar sands feedstock as having at least 23% greater GHG emissions than those from conventional crude oil, and that they are allocated a ‘default value’ of at least 107 gCO2eq/MJ as soon as possible.”
8. A specific default value for tar sands was included in Appendix 1 of the European Commission ‘Consultation paper on the measures necessary for the implementation of Article 7a(5)’ in 2009 (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/air/transport/pdf/art7a.pdf). Following lobbying by the Canadian Government and oil industry, it has been removed from Appendix 1 of the latest European Commission proposal; ‘Conceptual non-paper on the measures necessary for the implementation of Article 7a(5) of Directive 2009/30/EC amending Directive 98/70/EC on fuel quality’. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE62N3T920100324?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a54:g12:r1:c0.598104:b33172964:z3
