Canada has failed to live up to the commitment it made in signing the Kyoto Protocol to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by six per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. The huge emissions of greenhouse gases from the tar sands make it much more difficult for Canada to meet its obligations.

Facts on the tar sands:

• Fastest growing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada
• Production expected to grow to between three and five million barrels of oil a day by 2020
• Produces 40 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions currently; nearly the emissions of the Czech Republic
• Tar sands GHG emissions may double by 2015,
• By 2020 tar sands GHGs will likely increase to 141 million tonnes, double the current emissions of all cars and trucks in Canada
• Producing oil from the tar sands releases three to five times more GHG emissions than oil from conventional sources and uses three to five barrels of water to get a barrel of oil---the dirty oil problem
• Every day tar sands producers burn 600 million cubic feet of natural gas to produce tar sands oil, enough natural gas to heat three million Canadian homes
• Tar sands production is licensed to use more water a day than Alberta's two major cities---Calgary and Edmonton---combined
• 90 per cent of the water used in the tar sands is highly contaminated and ends up in huge tailings ponds that already cover 50 square kilometers. Contaminants include naphthenic acids and mercury.
• Tailings ponds adjacent to rivers pose an enormous threat of contamination of fresh water and destruction of wildlife
• A vast area of the boreal forest is being destroyed by tar sands operations, roads and pipelines; fragmenting forests and wildlife habitats and forcing the sensitive woodland caribou out of its home
• First Nations communities downstream of the tar sands have reported elevated levels of rare cancers. Tar sands pollution has been associated with embryonic deformity, mortality and other biological impacts in fish in the Athabasca River.