Canadian Government-Funded Secret Tar Sands Advocacy Worth Millions - by Aditya Tejas

The Canadian government spent millions of dollars on advocacy for extracting petroleum deposits from tar sands, a media report said Wednesday. Canada has one of the world’s largest oil reserves, behind only Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, but 97 percent of its reserves are in the form of tar sands.

The ruling Conservative Party’s 2013 budget included $30 million over two years that were spent on public relations and outreach activities to promote Alberta’s tar sands. The spending was revealed in documents found in a July 2014 policy binder acquired by the Guardian.

The outreach activities, which were never disclosed to the public, reportedly included provisions to “advance energy literacy amongst BC First Nations communities.”

The administration of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has focused strongly on trying to send tar sands to the British Columbia coast through two pipelines, Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan. These pipelines have faced stiff opposition from members of Canada’s First Nations communities due to environmental and economic concerns.

The documents reportedly reveal that some outreach activities focused on overseas measures, including efforts to block a European environmental measure -- the EU Fuel Quality Directive -- that would have hurt tar sands exports.

Read more: Canadian Government-Funded Secret Tar Sands Advocacy Worth Millions: Report

Canada revs up for fight over second tar sands pipeline - by Kim Murphy

The prime minister is talking about being "held hostage" by U.S. interests. Radio ads blare, "Stand up to this foreign bully." A Twitter account tells of a "secret plan to target Canada: exposed!"

Could this be Canada? The cheerful northern neighbor, supplier of troops to unpleasant U.S.-led foreign conflicts, reliable trade partner, ally in holding terrorism back from North America's shores -- not to mention the No. 1 supplier of America's oil?

Canada's recent push for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the nation's West Coast, where it would be sent to China, has been marked by uncharacteristic defiance. And it first flared in the brouhaha over the bananas.

Responding to urgings from U.S. environmentalists, Ohio-based Chiquita Brands International Inc. announced in November that it would join a growing number of companies trying to avoid fuel derived from Canada's tar sands, whose production is blamed for accelerating climate change and leveling boreal forests.

For more: Canada revs up for fight over second tar sands pipeline: Money | Alaska news at adn.com

Europe will vote to keep Canadian tar sands out

Its a bad year for Canada's tar sands. The US rejected the Keystone XL pipeline that would have carried fuel south, and now the European Union is poised to label tar bitumen more polluting than other forms of oil. That would rule out selling it to Europe.

The EU's Fuel Quality Directive will cut the greenhouse gas emissions generated by transport fuel - from production to use - by 6 per cent by the end of 2020. Suppliers will have to label fuels according to their total greenhouse-gas footprint, and current footprints will have to shrink.

The emissions from extracting and processing tar sands are larger than for regular oil (Environmental Research Letters, DOI: 10.1088/ 1748-9326/4/1/ 014005). The EU proposes labeling them as producing 22 per cent more emissions overall than conventional oil. Its fuel quality commission will vote on that proposal on 23 February, before the European Parliament makes the final decision.

For more: Europe will vote to keep Canadian tar sands out - environment - 22 February 2012 - New Scientist