Feature story - December 10, 2008
Over 60 organizations participating in the United Nations climate change talks in Poznan, Poland (December 1-12, 2008) and other groups around the world called on Canada’s Environment Minister Jim Prentice and Alberta’s Environment Minister Rob Renner to stop promoting the Canadian tar sands - the world’s dirtiest oil.
Andrea MacDonald, a 19-year-old Greenpeace volunteer from Vancouver, was attending the United Nations conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland, as part of an international youth delegation. She also took part of the Global day of action in Poland.
Renner was part of the Canadian delegation in Poznan, and participated in the climate talks along with Prentice.
In a letter to the ministers, leading non-governmental environmental organizations in Canada, the United States, Europe, and the developing world, stated
"As ministers charged with protecting the environment, it is your responsibility to put the brakes on tar sands expansion."
Some of the endorsers of the letter included: Greenpeace Canada (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton), Greenpeace International (Amsterdam, Netherlands), the Canadian Youth Delegation, Climate Action Network-Canada (Ottawa, Canada), Equiterre (Montreal, Quebec), Pembina Institute (Alberta, Canada), Rainforest Action Network (USA), Oil Change International (USA), David Suzuki Foundation (Vancouver, Canada), Hague Environmental Center (The Hague, Netherlands), Indigenous Environmental Network (USA), and Natural Resources Defense Council (Washington, USA)
Tar sands oil production generates three to five times as much greenhouse gas as conventional oil due to the massive amounts of energy needed to extract, upgrade and refine the oil. A halt of the tar sands is vital in order to make progress on climate change both globally and in Canada.
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Braving toxic fumes and the same toxic tailings waste that earlier this year killed 500 ducks, Greenpeace activists entered Syncrude's Aurora North tar sands operation early this morning and attempted to block a pipe into the two-kilometre wide tailings pond. The activists also suspended a banner that read "World's Dirtiest Oil: Stop the Tar Sands."
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.