{"id":6858,"date":"2018-12-20T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=6858"},"modified":"2025-07-02T04:20:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:20:45","slug":"what-people-got-wrong-about-whistlers-climate-letter-and-why-climate-accountability-is-here-to-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/6858\/what-people-got-wrong-about-whistlers-climate-letter-and-why-climate-accountability-is-here-to-stay\/","title":{"rendered":"What people got wrong about Whistler’s climate letter \u2026 and why climate accountability is here to stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

In recent days, the City of Whistler’s letter to oil companies caused a furor in the Canadian oil patch, on Bay Street, and (inevitably) in the media.<\/p>\n

In the mainstream, Whistler\u2019s action has been widely framed as Whistler getting in the middle of a fight between environmentalists and oil companies<\/a> \u2014 playing in a pool in which it doesn’t belong and trying to bill just one oil company<\/a> for the costs of climate change, even as the ski town’s own emissions rise<\/a> due to its fossil fuels guzzling.<\/p>\n

Of course, that\u2019s not the real story.<\/p>\n

\"Hummingbird<\/p>\n

Many important points about the data tying fossil fuels companies to climate change have gone unsaid and uncited. Meanwhile, industry claims about misinformation have gone unchallenged.<\/p>\n

So here’s what people have got wrong:<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t an attack against one company<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, the West Coast Environmental Law campaign<\/a> informing Whistler\u2019s letter targets more than a dozen companies<\/a> (largely international). Whistler sent letters to many companies, not just Canada\u2019s CNRL.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why: just 100 fossil fuel producers (private companies and state-owned entities) have been responsible for over 70 per cent of global anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> since 1988. That list contains big multinational and state-owned oil companies like Saudi Aramco (4.5% of total emissions since 1988), ExxonMobil (3.5%), Shell (1.7%) and BP (1.5%). It also includes<\/a> four Canadian oil and gas companies: CNRL, Suncor, Husky and Encana.<\/p>\n

This isn’t new stuff: investigative journalism from the L.A. Times<\/em><\/a> and Inside Climate News<\/em><\/a> as well as academic research from Harvard<\/a> has shown that oil companies have known for decades that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. Yet instead of sharing that information, they chose to engage in a public relations campaign to delay government action that would reduce demand for their product.<\/p>\n

That is why oil companies are coming under scrutiny and investigation for what we could call \u201cclimate crimes\u201d all over the world, from the Philippines<\/a>, to the USA<\/a>, to the small-island state of Vanuatu<\/a>. As the risks facing the oil industry mount, it’s important that Canada safeguard jobs by expanding clean energy opportunities and transitioning workers into them, rather than capitulate to the demands of an industry railing against change.<\/p>\n