Topic
When Canadian officials lobby against lower fuel carbon standards south of the border, they play for keeps. Ask a bruised Wisconsin scientist.
Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner: Traveling oil sands advocate.
Why did a parliamentary committee suddenly destroy drafts of a final report on tar sands pollution? Here's what they knew.
US politicians bend to foreign-backed pressure to soften climate bill.
Texas refiner banks big on oil sands and pours millions into Prop 23, a bid to halt Golden State climate policies, and maybe BC's too.
On Feb. 10 this year, two Canadian government officials appeared before a public hearing in Wisconsin to deliver a solemn warning.
The state was then considering adoption of broad climate change legislation designed to generate tens of thousands of green jobs. That package included a low carbon fuel standard, which proponents hoped would cut the state's reliance on high-carbon fossil fuels and boost a burgeoning renewable energy sector.
Canadian consuls Brian Herman and Georges Rioux were not originally scheduled to speak, but a snowstorm had left the Alberta government's U.S. representative, Gary Mar, stranded in Washington D.C. "[Mar] is practicing with his new snowshoes this morning," Rioux joked to the Senate Select Committee on Clean Energy.
Wisconsin, it turns out, is wholly dependant on Canadian oil. Nearly half its crude supply comes from north of the border, and much of that from Alberta's greenhouse gas-intensive oil sands.
"I would like to leave you with one request," Rioux read aloud from a prepared statement. "While you pursue new energy policies including a potential [low carbon fuel standard] please ask the question: Will this result in Wisconsin becoming more dependant on oil from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Venezuela because we've cut off supply from our northern neighbours, our friends and allies?"
Three months later, the state dropped low carbon fuel standard provisions from its Clean Energy Jobs Act.
It was a major victory in the ongoing Canadian government campaign to keep oil sands crude pumping into American markets.
At stake are huge tax and royalty revenues that would flow from accelerated oil sands production into Albertan and Canadian governments' coffers. But if low carbon fuel standard frameworks being developed at state levels are adopted by Congress, that could reduce U.S. oil sands demand by a third by 2030, according to experts.
The hard sell from north of the border has left some U.S. climate change advocates feeling bruised, including one Wisconsin scientist who says it was "frustrating" to confer with Canadian officials who talked green, and later see them act the opposite.
Federal oil sands 'advocacy strategy'
The earliest evidence that Canada was campaigning at the state level to promote oil sands exports over proposed climate change policies dates back to Nov. 2008, when Canada's former ambassador to the U.S., Michael Wilson, wrote a concerned letter to the chairman of California's Air Resources Board. The state's pending low carbon fuel standard laws, Wilson fretted, would discriminate unfairly against Alberta's oil sands.
Government emails obtained by Climate Action Network (CAN) Canada suggest Wilson's letter was part of an oil sands "advocacy strategy" being developed in late 2008 by three federal departments.
Further documents show Canadian policymakers anticipated negative economic impacts from American climate change laws.
"U.S. legislation at both federal and state levels potentially target oilsands production," reads a March 2009 powerpoint presentation prepared by Natural Resources Canada.
That April, with California's low carbon fuel standard gaining legislative momentum, then-natural resources minister Lisa Raitt wrote directly to then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, insistent on changes.
Production emissions from Alberta's oil sands are generally 82 per cent higher than more conventional operations, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. California also produces carbon-heavy oil, which fuel standard opponents say the legislation doesn't address. Raitt, in her letter, proposed that all road fuels made from crude oil be considered equal from a greenhouse gas perspective -- a measure that green observers say would undermine the entire policy.
"Briefly stated," she wrote, "we are concerned that the proposed [low carbon fuel standard] regulation could lead to unfavourable treatment of Canadian crude oil."
California officially approved its fuel standard this January -- but not before the Canadian government had formally intervened three more times, a recent CAN Canada report noted.
Renner's mission to America
This June, the Alberta government sent its environment minister, Rob Renner, to the eastern U.S. on a mission of "particular importance," records show. His objective, besides touting the province's green credentials, was to "help inform the development process" of a regional low carbon fuel standard being considered by 11 states.
Renner spent four days schmoozing with policymakers in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. While in Boston, he delivered the keynote speech at an energy conference hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance, a self-described non-partisan organization with some of the continent's largest oil companies as members. (Click here to read a Tyee report about the group).
The conference examined "the potentially adverse consequences" of a northeastern fuel standard. Renner stuck to the theme, warning that such an initiative could actually slow environmental progress in his province's oil sands.
"It is important the Alberta government take advantage of opportunities to tell our story, especially in jurisdictions considering policy that may impact Alberta," Renner wrote in an email to The Tyee, regarding his speech.
Burned by Alberta?
This was not the first time the Consumer Energy Alliance shared a stage with Albertan officials. NESCAUM, the regional agency developing northeastern fuel standard guidelines, asked for stakeholder input in late Oct. 2009. The CEA's executive director, Michael Whatley, and Alberta's U.S. representative, Gary Mar, both provided testimony. According to meeting notes, Mar "argued that the U.S. has a valid interest in obtaining some level of energy security through purchasing oil sands from Canada."
Whatley considers policymakers such as Mar and Renner to be effective allies. "We do work closely with the Alberta government folks and have a very strong relationship with those guys," he told The Tyee.
Mar's Washington office declined requests for an interview. "He's just busy with other things, we'll have to take a pass for this time around," a spokesperson said.
In late 2009, Wisconsin scientist Peter Taglia came away from a tour of the oil sands convinced that the Alberta government really did care about climate change. He'd been in Alberta as part of a delegation sent from the American Midwest. Ten economically intertwined states were -- and still are -- considering adoption of a regional low carbon fuel standard. Taglia, who works for a green group called Clean Wisconsin, belongs to a stakeholder group tasked with developing guidelines for such a policy.
Because nearly all oil sands crude flows directly into the Midwest, the group decided to hold its first meeting in Alberta. The visit went very well, Taglia remembered. Alberta policymakers talked big about progress and research -- and how they were investing huge in carbon capture and storage. But months later, as Wisconsin debated its own fuel standard, Taglia began to doubt their good will.
Canadian testimony at public hearings portrayed the policy in a very negative light, he said. And behind the scenes, Taglia claimed, Albertan officials lobbied vigorously against it.
"I think they're trying to tell two different stories," he told The Tyee. "They behave basically the same way the Texas oil companies do."
Not seeking 'special treatment': Renner
The provincial government argues that in all its dealings with U.S. policymakers, it's merely trying to share pertinent information. "We are not looking for special treatment but fair treatment," Renner wrote The Tyee in an email.
Taglia doesn't think the Albertan intervention alone caused Wisconsin to drop its low carbon fuel standard this April. Strong fossil fuel opposition from companies such as Koch Industries -- which owns Flint Hills Resources, a major refiner of oil sands crude -- also factored.
But Taglia expected better from his northern neighbors. "I was disappointed with the Canadians," he said. "It was frustrating to work with them." ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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jacksonupnorth
2 years ago
We are not the Canada we used to be
The Oil and Gas Companies are running this country.
Jeffrey J.
2 years ago
Collective Suicide?
After reading these articles (which are excellent BTW), I can't help but thinking, we really are going to do ourselves in. Incredible, but with the corporate ideology firmly lodged in the minds of all its employees and partners, we will relive the fate of Easter Island.
Only millions of times larger, and sentence ourselves to the destruction of the earth.
Totally insane.
mopled
2 years ago
Suicide is going along with the World Bank
"World Bank President Robert Zoellick is set to launch a new multi-million dollar fund in Mexico on Wednesday to help emerging market countries set up their own carbon markets, the bank said on Tuesday."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B65EN20101208
Now that the Banksters have ruined the economies of the EU and the US, they plan to go to a "carbon" based economy which they will control by Global Governance. It never was about the environment.
Van Isle
2 years ago
As I have said before, and
As I have said before, and this is just another example; the psychopaths are in charge.
boondoggle
2 years ago
Payback for electing a phsychopath oil exec as Prime Minister.
We simply do not deserve to live on this planet when we allow our once democratic country and our environment to be given away to the psychopathic oil industry. The fact that the citizens of this country have allowed our government to take a more criminally irresponsible position than the U.S. on carbon emissions makes me ashamed to admit I'm Canadian. We are all responsible for this insanity and I'm wondering if we will ever wake up.
mopled
2 years ago
The psychopaths certainly are in charge, Van Isle!
"The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2010 as the Climategate scandal -- which involved the upper echelon of UN IPCC scientists -- detonated upon on the international climate movement. "I view Climategate as science fraud, pure and simple," said noted Princeton Physicist Dr. Robert Austin shortly after the scandal broke. Climategate prompted UN IPCC scientists to turn on each other. UN IPCC scientist Eduardo Zorita publicly declared that his Climategate colleagues Michael Mann and Phil Jones "should be barred from the IPCC process...They are not credible anymore." Zorita also noted how insular the IPCC science had become. "By writing these lines I will just probably achieve that a few of my future studies will, again, not see the light of publication," Zorita wrote. A UN lead author Richard Tol grew disillusioned with the IPCC and lamented that it had been "captured" and demanded that "the Chair of IPCC and the Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups should be removed." Tol also publicly called for the "suspension" of IPCC Process in 2010 after being invited by the UN to participate as lead author again in the next IPCC Report. [Note: Zorita and Tol are not included in the count of dissenting scientists in this report.]
Other UN scientists were more blunt. A South African UN scientist declared the UN IPCC a "worthless carcass" and noted IPCC chair Pachauri is in "disgrace". He also explained that the "fraudulent science continues to be exposed." Alexander, a former member of the UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters harshly critiqued the UN. "'I was subjected to vilification tactics at the time. I persisted. Now, at long last, my persistence has been rewarded...There is no believable evidence to support [the IPCC] claims. I rest my case!" See: S. African UN Scientist Calls it! 'Climate change - RIP: Cause of Death: No scientifically believable evidence...Deliberate manipulation to suit political objectives' [Also see: New Report: UN Scientists Speak Out On Global Warming -- As Skeptics!] Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook, a professor of geology at Western Washington University, summed up the scandal on December 3, 2010: "The corruption within the IPCC revealed by the Climategate scandal, the doctoring of data and the refusal to admit mistakes have so severely tainted the IPCC that it is no longer a credible agency."
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore
Fish-counter
2 years ago
Would it be so bad if Alberta oil lasted longer?
We know there is a huge supply of oil in the Tar Sands, and that it can be extracted with the application of huge amounts of energy. Would it be so bad if it lasted a few years longer because the demand for it was slowed down by a few percent?
What bothers me is the relentless drive for the highest possible short term growth of the Tar Sands.
Fort McMurray is already bursting at the seams. They are unable to maintain services to accommodate their own growth rate. Workers are living in appalling conditions. Why not give them time to build?
The Tar Sands reclamation is lagging behind the exploitation, and we will hear increasingly frequent reports of high cancer rates in the downstream human populations and of more wildlife poisonings. Why are we creating a giant version of the Sidney Tar Ponds, when we haven't dealt with the first ones yet?
Why are we in such a hurry to create the world's worst environmental nightmare? Are we nostalgic for the days when the nickel mines in Sudbury were the worst single point source of SO2 in the world?
This is not the way most Canadians want to be seen and remembered by the rest of the world. It makes it hard to sell ourselves as the place to go for an outdoor vacation.
Fish-counter
2 years ago
P.S.
We have long been the world's worst hypocrites on the environment, but do we have to make it so obvious?
cboo44
2 years ago
Wisconsin Reality Check
Geez, it's really tough when all the warm & fuzzy, greeney laws that are dreamed up, hit the solid wall of reality, isn't it? So unfortunate that the theorists can't seem to think things through. Duh.
mopled
2 years ago
Fish-counter makes valid points
There are real problems with the exploitation of the Tar Sands. That is one of the reasons I am so adamant on showing that the Carbon Twaddle isn't one of them.
The faster real environmentalists climb off that false paradigm, the faster you might be able to be heard on real objections to real problems.
The Climate Boondoggle has so poisoned the information well, that people are turning away. Ultimately, Greenies help the oil companies, which may explain why nasty BP and just as nasty Shell bankrolled the major climate modeling center, Hadley CRU of Climategate fame.
When people realize how they have been lied to about the role of CO2 in climate, they will look askance at anything else coming out of the US foundation funded Green Machine. The irony is,ultimately the money can be traced back to oil companies.
poetician
2 years ago
warm and fuzzy and greeney
What an interesting notion, to dismiss the idea that the integrity of our environment is warm and fuzzy and greeney. Is it really so bad to point out that it is not a good idea to shit in our living room? That is the "solid wall of reality". This out of site out of mind attitude that these eco-rapists are using to despoil the Athabaska would not be tolerated if if it were closer to our more populated regions and for our government to sanction this just shows them to be the stupid patsies that they are. Long after Harper is forgotten his legacy of a despoiled Northern Alberta will linger. Why don't you play that tune on your piano Steve-o!
mopled
2 years ago
What's happening in Cancun is frightening
"The 33-page Note (FCCC/AWGLCA/2010/CRP.2) by the Chairman of the “Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Co-operative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, entitled Possible elements of the outcome, reveals all. Or, rather, it reveals nothing, unless one understands what the complex, obscure jargon means. All UNFCCC documents at the Cancun conference, specifically including Possible elements of the outcome, are drafted with what is called “transparent impenetrability”. The intention is that the documents should not be understood, but that later we shall be told they were in the public domain all the time, so what are we complaining about?
Since the Chairman’s note is very long, I shall summarize the main points:
Finance: Western countries will jointly provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to an unnamed new UN Fund. To keep this sum up with GDP growth, the West may commit itself to pay 1.5% of GDP to the UN each year. That is more than twice the 0.7% of GDP that the UN has recommended the West to pay in foreign aid for the past half century. Several hundred of the provisions in the Chairman’s note will impose huge financial costs on the nations of the West.
The world-government Secretariat: In all but name, the UN Convention’s Secretariat will become a world government directly controlling hundreds of global, supranational, regional, national and sub-national bureaucracies. It will receive the vast sum of taxpayers’ money ostensibly paid by the West to the Third World for adaptation to the supposed adverse consequences of imagined (and imaginary) “global warming”.
Bureaucracy: Hundreds of new interlocking bureaucracies answerable to the world-government Secretariat will vastly extend its power and reach. In an explicit mirroring of the European Union’s method of enforcing the will of its unelected Kommissars on the groaning peoples of that benighted continent, the civil servants of nation states will come to see themselves as servants of the greater empire of the Secretariat, carrying out its ukases and diktats whatever the will of the nation states’ governments."
more
http://sppiblog.org/news/the-abdication-of-the-west
Fish-counter
2 years ago
Nice choice of words, mopled, but.....
The English language is too often used to miscommunicate and confuse, rather than to communicate.
There is a problem with our use of carbon for fuel, regardless of the impact of CO2 on climate. Have you heard of the acidification of the oceans, for example? Please don't argue that it is insignificant, nor that the McKay Indian Band have inordinate levels of cancer.
The use of natural gas to provide heat for the Tar Sands extraction is bizarre. We may have abundant gas resources, but that is no reason to squander them. I would go so far as to say that this is a perfect application for...(wait for it)...nuclear power.
mopled
2 years ago
Puleeze pay attention
World government is being set up on the basis of diddled data. There is no "climate crisis" and the Tar Sands will be further developed with machinery made in Korea which landed in Vancouver Washington with plans to ship it through the US to Alberta.
"All Against The Haul is a homegrown effort working to stop the construction of a permanent industrial corridor for oversized loads to the Alberta Tar Sands through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana"
http://allagainstthehaul.org/the-haul/the-route/
So, while we have been arguing about spurious science the Globalist invented IPCC put out in 2007, the Banksters have continued trashing sovereignty and the environment.
The Climate Change Whoha is COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
southdeltawalker
2 years ago
Don't be disapointed-take action this Saturday!
We will be in the streets this Sat. hours after the end of the climate talks in Cancun.
Canada was awaded Fossil of the Day award just prior to these talks for it's policies on the Tar Sands and it's inaction on the climate crisis.
Now Canada has abandoned it's commitments to the Kyoto Protocal.
Politicians are sandbagging the climate talks-the Earth can't wait so we will be sandbagging them back and demanding real action on the climate crisis.
Meet Noon Sat. Dec. 11 Waterfront Station Howe St. entrance {convention centre} Vancouver for a mass direct action.
All details here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=172793906077598&index=1
kmdyson
2 years ago
It's called
Corporatism... the oligarchs have taken over the government and it's policies...what was that old saying..."What's good for General Motors is good for the USA" ... In this case it's "what's good for the oil barons is good for everyone"...yippee we're all gonna die!
frank2
2 years ago
Attempts by state gov'ts to
Attempts by state gov'ts to limit use of carbon intensive fuels are a second best -- no, third best -- way of dealing with this problem. A carbon tax designed to reflect the cost of externalities (plus regulations on despoilation of rivers, etc.) would be far more efficient, would perhaps slow growth of production, AND would provide public revenues that could be used for useful things. Let's hope our politicians start thinking again about structural means for dealing with the problem.
samuidave (not verified)
2 years ago
frank2
"Let's hope our politicians start thinking again about structural means for dealing with the problem."
Employees, the politicians, do as their boss tels them or they lose their jobs. Politicians do not think for themselves; they follow The Party, indebted for its survival to its owners, the corporatists.
Hoping the Party politicians are going to help is naive, at best. It's just so obvious few can see it for what it is.
mopled
2 years ago
The UN wants nothing less than 1.5% of our GDP.
That’s $212 billion from the USA every year ($2700 per family of 4).
That’s $32 billion from the UK every year ($2000 per family of 4).
That’s $13 billion from Australia every year ($2400 per family of 4).
Canada's GDP is $1.277 trillion (2009 est.)according to the CIA Sourcebook.
"The Secretariat will have the power not merely to invite nation states to perform their obligations under the climate-change Convention, but to compel them to do so. Nation states are to be ordered to collect, compile and submit vast quantities of information, in a manner and form to be specified by the secretariat and its growing army of subsidiary bodies."
"Once this is quietly established, how will any single nation back out even if it’s citizen vote to do so (other than the US with the military might to match the UN?)
If you would prefer to spend that money on other things. Now is the time to protest. The more money they get, the harder they are to stop."
http://joannenova.com.au/
Fish-counter
2 years ago
By the time we are done...
We will be glad of the Alberta Tar Sands. They are a resource of last resort, appropriate for use when all other sources are depleted and not before.
The extraction of the oil content (15%) from quartz sand (85%) is enormously inefficient. The sheer size of the land surface that has to be disrupted, and the volume of water used, are unacceptable.
Anyone who has seen the site first-hand will tell you that the air is foul beyond belief in Fort McMurray. The water downstream is contaminated beyond doubt. The only reason the industry is being developed is because it is out of sight.
Anyone who supports the Tar Sands should go there and see first-hand what it entails.
Canada deserves the fossil of the year award.
YCSTS
2 years ago
Big Oil is a Major Player in "The Green Agenda/New World Order"
Mopled, some excellent links. I have to agree with you that Climate Change is being used as a Cover to finance & institute the New World Order. The ex-Australian PM admitted as much. And big corrupt pseudo-Greenie Premier's like Campbell & McGuinty are Bilderberg "guests".
What I can't understand is how you seem to have jumped into bed with Big Oil, who are a major part of the New World Order Gang. You haven't heard of the #1 Oil Barons - the Rockefellers - also Big Banking - also the Club of Rome - also the biggest financiers of Greenpeace - also David Rockefeller even admitted to "the Green Agenda". Yes, there are a few Oil Bit-Players who have financed AGW Deniers and the California Prop 23, but the Big Oil players are major backers of the Renewable Energy / Green Agenda SCAM.
I don't know much about Climate Science. I assume the scientists who specialize in the field know what they are talking about. Although, it is a frightening change in Government, Business & the Media, that they endeavor to corrupt science & buy science. I don't bother studying AGW science because it is irrelevant. We need to move to a Nuclear Economy, from a Fossil Fuel economy. It is HIGHLY economical to do so. It is advantageous in many other ways to do so. Notice that the ONLY REAL SOLUTION, is the one thing that the Green Agenda/New World Order/Greenie Groups are vehemently opposed to.
John W. Whitmore
2 years ago
Realisim Sucks
We need Energy. In all its forms.
Planetary wide environemntal change is occouring. That change has been with us since the beginning. And will continue long after we are gone.
We are affecting the planet in ways we do not have any idea of the consequence. Duh! Just be living and you have a consequence. Global impact is something rather new for us. Most folk deny that they have any singular effect, but in the whole, we have massive impact. Not a Climate change denier. But a denier of how we go about this.
Oil Sands are bad? Yes they are. Anytime we rip the planet up to meet our immediate needs will cause bad things to occour. But we still need oil. We still need energy. In Canada, since we have abandoned any real attempt at creating value added work thru our adoption of a feverent Market Only approach, Energy is one of the only commodities the Market considers us worthy of providing.
As a Commodity provider, Energy is one of the few things the rest of the world has any willingness to purchase from us. No wonder why we are one of the "non progresive" Nations. We need the money from the oil sands to pay for public sector pensions, to pay for health care requirements, to pay for our education requirements.
Our goverenment is simply doing what it needs to do to keep us happy. If you do not like it then we need to examine public sector pensions, education and health care in a different light.
I would welcome that debate.
JWW