The Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund announced yesterday that Canada's multi-billion dollar oil sands projects rank less than F minus on their environmental scorecards. That could mean all Canadians will have to pay when our CO2 debt is called in by the world's eco-responsible nations.

Jeffery Jones of the Guardian writes:

Environmental groups Pembina Institute and World Wildlife Fund surveyed 10 Alberta oil sands ventures, including seven yet to start producing, for attention to land, air emissions, water, climate change and overall environmental management.
Authors of the study called on the government to set more stringent limits on water use, emissions and impacts on wildlife and public health.
Only Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Muskeg River mine got a passing mark, and even that was just 56 percent, according to the report, entitled "Under-Mining the Environment."
"What this study has shown is that there's more talk than there is action in terms of meaningful commitments to addressing the issues," said Dan Woynillowicz, senior policy analyst at the Pembina Institute....

Mined oil sands from Shell, Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Suncor Energy Inc, are processed into about 800,000 barrels of refinery-ready light crude a day, which is roughly 30 percent of the country's overall oil output.
Output is expected to triple by the middle of the next decade, an increase in the energy-intensive business that is alarming to environmentalists and residents of towns near the northern oil sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

With oil sands refining already responsible for Canada's abysmal Kyoto record, the thought that production will increase threefold indicates that governments have abdicated any responsibility for the fate of the planet. One day--not long from now--all Canadians will have to pay a price for our lack of environmental stewardship today.

"The government has not been in any way driving environmental performance. The government's been as focused on growth as the industry has -- it's been 'How fast can we go?' not 'How well can we do it?'" Woynillowicz said.
He said the study is partly aimed at investors, who will eventually have to deal with liabilities among firms that do not live up to coming regulations for things like greenhouse gas emissions, which will carry major costs.

Another worry for Toronto is that all this oil sands production demands massive inputs of natural gas to produce light crude from tar. There is a finite amount of gas and when the industrial sector is willing to pay virtually any price for it then consumers will have to pay more. Welcome to the "free market." The problem is, the market is never free no matter what laissez faire capitalists maintain. There are more government--that means you and me ultimately--bailouts of commercial enterprises than economists would like to admit, and oil sands producers come nowhere close to paying the real, long-term costs of their exploration activities.

1. You write as if Toronto reaps no benefits from the oilsands. Alberta doesn’t get equalisation any more and the country gets the benefit of an energy export surplus. The Feds also get all that lovely GST and income tax the tarsanders generate.

   Yes we might indeed have to pay more for gas (assuming there is no switch to nuclear in Alberta for generating steam) but shutting down the oilsands would have a negative national economic impact, and people who think there is a zero-pain way of doing it are kidding themselves. Therefore Torontonians will get screwed either way, just like always.

   Posted by Mark Dowling  on  01/11  at  01:11 PM

2. The benefits we get are all short-term, short-sighted, and don’t reflect the real costs of digging up half of Alberta for oil sand. And the thought of having private oil companies owning and managing nuclear power stations sends a chill up my spine.

   As is the case in these things we let an expedient energy solution win over a sustainable solution. Let’s see. We are growing food to convert to fuel for our cars thus literally “driving up” the cost of food. We are pouring millions of tons of CO2 into an already fragile atmosphere just about ready to tip massively towards global warming. And, we are going to freeze because the gas we use to heat our homes and generate electricity somewhat environmentally is going to be too expensive for consumers to use. Sounds perfect.

   Posted by Editor  on  01/11  at  01:25 PM

3. My question concerning Canada’s environmental position in general, is why isn’t there more large scale mobilised protest against it. Surely there are millions of people who disagree with the oil sands, and with Harper’s stance on the Kyoto protocol, and so on. However there is very little engagement in the ‘old school’ forms of voicing discontent, i.e. protests, sit-ins, petitions. Facebook groups and blogs (even as good as they may be) aren’t quite enough to push the political hot buttons necessary. I am reminiscing back to the good old days of the Irag war protests and Quebec City, not that those actions weren’t without some criticism, but hell, shouldn’t there be some kind of protest happening in Toronto concerning this utterly embarassing enviro-political situation?

   Posted by  on  01/11  at  09:27 PM

4. I’m not sure protests are the answer—at least in the way you describe them. After all, when a city is on fire do we protest to get everyone to join in to put out the flames? Almost everyone in our country understands that this is a big problem that won’t go away on its own accord. These issues have to be dealt with at the highest political levels by both ends of the political spectrum because we all share the same country and if our city or our home is burning we all have to put out the flames. Voting is the answer to this issue… that is a language political mandarins understand.

   Posted by Editor  on  01/11  at  09:45 PM

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