A deal to sell tar sands oil in Europe would outweigh any good the UK might do with all its other climate change measures
– by Bill McKibben, first published in the UK Guardian
The EU has provisionally imposed penalties severe enough to make it difficult for Canada to sell tar sands oil in Europe, but Britain is working to undermine that stance. Photograph: Jeff Mcintosh/AP
Here’s the essential fact to bear in mind. The tar sands of northern Alberta are the second-largest pool of carbon on earth, second only to Saudi Arabia. It’s burning Saudi Arabia, more than any other single thing, that has raised the temperature of the planet by a degree so far. But when oil was discovered in the Middle East, we knew nothing about climate change – it’s not surprising that we started pumping. In the case of Canada, however, we’ve taken 3% of the oil from the sands. We’re still at the start.
If, knowing what we now know about climate change, we just keep going, then we’re idiots.
That realisation explains why Americans rose up in remarkable numbers to fight the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. In August 1,253 people were arrested outside the White House during the largest civil disobedience action in a generation. Citizens ringed the president’s mansion in a line a mile long and five people deep. A couple of weeks ago, the president announced that he would delay the pipeline for a new environmental review, which would cover not only the route across the country but also climate change, public health, and other issues.
That announcement caught industry off guard. Transcanada Pipeline had already mowed the strip they planned to put the pipe on, and had carried vast quantities of steel across the border. They’re fighting back with every tool they can find, but for the moment they’re delayed and in trouble. It’s a win, though like all environmental wins a temporary one. And it’s a tribute not only to an organising effort that brought everyone from Nebraska ranchers to Occupy Wall Street protesters together, but also to the slowly dawning realisation that this was a big deal. As the leading climatologist James Hansen puts it, tap heavily into tar sands oil and it’s “essentially game over for the climate”.
Which is where Europe comes in. Canada wants to sell some of this oil on the continent, and as today’s revelations in the Guardian reveal they’ve dispatched endless teams of diplomats and oil barons to make the case. They have a difficult row to hoe – because the oil is embedded in sand, it takes lots of energy to get it out of the ground and hence it’s even more carbon-intensive than regular oil. The EU has provisionally imposed penalties on that extra carbon severe enough to make it difficult for Canada to sell Europeans its filthy oil.
But now, for reasons not entirely clear, the UK seems to have emerged as Canada’s partner in crime, leaning on Brussels to let this crud across the borders. No one seems to know exactly why. Lingering colonial attachment? Kinship among Tory governments? The effect, however, is clear. Any good that Britain’s government does with new efficiency standards, runway halts, windmills, you name it; all that will be outweighed if it manages to broker a deal to bring this oil into Europe.
Just as it was for Obama, it will be among the biggest single environmental decisions the Cameron government makes. So far it’s been hidden behind some obscure jargon in Brussels, but history will expose this as one of those fateful choices humans sometimes get to make. Faced with a huge new pool of carbon, will we simply make the easy choices for short-term profit? Or will we actually figure out that it’s time to think anew? Odd that in this day and age choices so important to the future of an oilfield a hemisphere away, and to the entire atmosphere, would be made in Whitehall, but that’s the case here. Around the world environmentalists are watching, and hoping Britain strikes a serious blow for the future.
• Bill McKibben is the author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, and an organizer at 350.org
Related Post:
- Canadian PM Harper Says Okaying the Tar Sands Pipeline Is a “Complete No-Brainer.” I Could Not Agree More: “It is not in the national interest, nor is it in humanity’s interest.”
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Thanks for this, Bill, and CP, too- of course, MSM did not report it at all.
It’s bad on many levels. Enabling a market in Europe (they won’t be able to keep British refineries from sending it across the Channel) triggers all kinds of vile behavior. Refining in Canada and shipping overseas via rail will become viable. Further development of the Tar Sands will become much easier, including financing. After the defeat of Keystone, Tar Sands banks got very nervous, and they have no doubt been working hard behind the scenes in London, the European banking capital. Venezuela could well become emboldened to develop the Orinoco Tar Sands, which I was told in 2001 held over 200 billion barrels. Warriors who fought so hard to stop Keystone could become discouraged.
I hope you and 350.org have counterparts in England who can match your determination. They will need all of the strength and support they can get.
No surprise here. A viciously extreme, far Right, Tory regime, that lied through its teeth to be elected concerning its non-existent Green credentials, will be positively enjoying shoving it in the face of the environmental movement, which they detest with every particle of hereditary hatred for ‘oinks’ who forget their place. This is a question of money, the only thing these ambulaTory cadavers hold dear.
These ‘ambulaTory cadavers’ (nice one) seem to also hold dear the smirks they wear on their faces, my TV survives – but only just.
They keep on about the greedy union members who strike because after their conditions of employment were hacked-about over the last several decades now their pensions are on the rack with conditions of employment once again being changed – despite agreements not to do this.
The elephant given the invisibility treatment is the role of the worlds big bankers (Goldman Sachs, UBS and AIG) in bringing about the debt crises by creating toxic financial products that have undermined democratically elected governments that the ’1%’ didn’t like because these governments told the WTO, IMF etc to stuff their whacky money leaching products. The money being leached to those with bank accounts in Switzerland and other havens for the fraudsters.
All this is made crystal clear in Palast’s ‘Vultures Picnic’, it worth reading the whole book.
The UK of course is in the firing line for the same treatment (in our case a repeat dose of that which we suffered in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s) as Greece, Ireland, Italy and soon Spain and Portugal. This of course follows on from what happened in Brazil, Ecuador and Argentina with one Friedman leading the pack and another making apologies through the NYT and attempting to gloss over what was really afoot.
Which reminds me about Pinochet and Chile, there seems little general awareness in the UK of what happened there and how Thatcherism was incubated there. History, as well as science, are poorly served in education.
These forces have a playbook which includes encouraging riots amongst populations. In this light the police were not negligent in tackling the start of the summer riots here – they were in on it.
Cameron and Osborne are just food soldiers obeying orders. And the Murdoch Media farce is more of a distraction than anything else. It is the equivalent of ‘the tits on page three’ of one of those Red-Tops – to entertain and distract. Not that there are not serious questions to be answered but will all the cards fall neatly – I doubt it. Little will be achieved and the Murdochs will escape serious censure.
The populace at large seem just so apathetic about understanding what is really going on in this world – heck I have difficulty broaching the subject with my own spouse, just doesn’t wish to talk about such things.
I can understand the frustrations and fears of those Germans with a knowledgeable conscience in that country in the run up to and during the second world war.
As for the tar sands I will consider what role I can play in embarrassing Tweedledum and Tweedledee, occupants of No 10 and No 11 respectively.
I agree 110%, Lionel. And Goldman Sachs, having taken over the US Treasury and Federal Reserve, the latter as custodians for the real controlling interests in the global financial oligarchy, are now taking over the ECB, and the governments of Italy and Greece. Kakistocracy rules!
We also know the smug, immensely self-satisfied smirk of the triumphant Rightist. We had a grand practitioner of the art in our former, unlamented, Treasurer, Peter Costello, who, as he asset stripped the common wealth at bargain basement prices, made tax cut after tax cut favouring the rich, confected superannuation rorts richly favouring the rich and introduced a hugely regressive consumption tax (his only regret that he could not screw the plebs more by applying it to food)habitually wore a smirk, a veritable rictus, of smug self-satisfaction.
It is all about more. Canada wants to export more tar sand muck. The US has been importing and will continue to import tar sand muck through the existing pipeline that delivers it to Cushing. The pressure in Canada is intense to ramp-up the exports. I recently saw a conference that was held in Calgary…they loves the tar sand industry in Calgary. They want more jobs; they do not care how much environmental damage they contribute to or how much water they waste. All opposition to expanding the tar sand market is considered by them to be an overreaction.
The reasons for the UK acting in this way are simple. UK-slanted oil companies Shell and BP have big plan for Alberta’s tar sands, according to the Guardian article. And the UK’s Coalition government is firmly in the pockets of such corporates — just look at the way they have run from real bank reform, pander to the shale gas lobby, and have extended tax breaks to encourage Oil&G as exploration in the North Sea.
It’s not just the US politicos run ragged by corporate interests. Hopefully, though, the UK’s Coalition govt will continue to hold little sway over an EU that they openly pillory and blame for their own failings.
I will, I hope, be attending one of the events tomorrow night out here. I am eager to hear about what 350.org is thinking and planning, and I’m eager to share my ideas (many of which I’ve written numerous times here on CP, so I hope they’ve been seen and “duly registered” already).
I think that there are a number of very concrete, very focused, and potentially very helpful things that 350.org and ClimateProgress could do together in coming months. I’ve already written about some of them here.
That said, not a single idea has been adopted. Indeed, not a single one has even been acknowledged. Is anyone out there, listening? Or are ideas listed here, or offered elsewhere, all for naught?
I applaud the aims of organizations involved in the climate change movement, and the efforts made, including and perhaps especially those of 350.org, of course, but I think we’ll all need to become MUCH more creative, targeted, and so forth to make real and sufficient progress.
Cheers and Be Well,
Jeff
A PRACTICAL idea. Offer the Republicans the chance to revise the tax code to cut top rates and favor rich people. They like doing that. Offset the tax cuts with a CARBON tax which would render projects like the tar sands moot. As long as the US is in the mode of reforming the tax code, all efforts should be to include a carbon tax in the mix rather than ranting about solar subsidies, etc.
‘Greenest Government ever’ failing on climate change
The Government’s ‘schizophrenic attitude’ to climate change is holding back the country’s economy by stifling investor’s confidence in green industry, MPs and business leaders have warned.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/8818384/Greenest-Government-ever-failing-on-climate-change.html
The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said the recent decision to review targets for cutting emissions in half by 2025 makes business think David Cameron is not really serious about being ‘the greenest Government ever’.
As a consequence companies are failing to invest in urgently-needed renewable energy projects like and wind and solar.
Ultimately the delay could push up energy prices due to the Government’s failure to see the potential in green energy.
Zac Goldsmith, a Conservative member of the EAC, said investors will not provide the capital to replace Britain’s creaking coal-fired power stations with low carbon alternatives until they are certain of support.
There is no schizophrenias. The ‘greenest ever’ humbug is pure PR bulldust, and the reality is of extreme anti-environmental hatred, typical of the Right everywhere. In Australia we have two new state ‘Liberal’ regimes, who pretended to be environmentally friendly when seeking election. Upon election, particularly in Victoria where the reaction has been extreme in every way (even destroying decades old environmental protections brought in by Liberal regimes of the past), they turned out to be as brown as a dog turd.
Deary me. The Daily Telegraph sure is schizophrenic considering ‘interpreter of interpretations’ Delingpole haunts these pages. I doubt Louise Gray is much worried by that, if threatened by his ‘pointless knowledgeableness’ she would likely tell him to, ‘not be such a wimp’.
There was once a bit of doggerel describing the readership of each of the main UK newspapers with The Express being read by those who wish Britain still ruled the world and The Telegraph by those who think it still does (which was the version when I first came across it in the late 1960s). The ‘Chinese whispers’ nature of these things has caused it to morph into a number of versions of which one can be found here:
under the sub-heading Politics.
More enlightenment on the nuance of UK mainstream media can be found at:
British Newspapers
Our only hope to avoid tar sand development is to reduce fossil fuel consumption, and that means actively choosing a more fuel-efficient means of transport, each and every one of us. Permanent destruction of demand for fossil fuels, nothing less will work. So I challenge each of you to ask yourselves, how can I personally use less fuel in the near future and in the longer term. And each of us to convince 4-10 other people to do the same.
A solution – possibly the only solution – to American’s excess (obscene) consumption of fossil fuels would come if Americans had to pay what the rest of the world pays when they fill up at the pump. But instead we pay for our gasoline in “round about” ways – through subsidies and military expenditures – ways which the vast majority of us don’t (or won’t) associate with pump prices. Or so I’ve read…
Another article from the Guardian in which Damian Carrington attacks the “Rhetoric of unprecedented contempt” towards all things Green from the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister ) George Osborne.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2011/nov/29/green-autumn-statement-osborne-economy-environment
Damian has written several articles on the resolutely anti-environmental culture within the treasury.
The Conservative party is now nothing more than Tea Party (UK) plc. A lot of the party’s backbenchers are climate change denialists and, I guess are quite happy with this situation.
Finally, David Cameron’s background is, I understand, in PR. He is the smiley front man who got them elected but if he were to step out of line he’d be out and replaced by some gruesome neo-thatcherite.
And really finally, don’t look to their Liberal Democrat coalition partners for anything. It’s their first time in government for 70 or 80 years and, although they mean well on many green issues, it seems to me that they’ve been completely outmanoevered by skilled political operatives in the Tory party – some of whom were in Thatcher’s cabinet and are still around.
Better stop; I feel this is turning into a rant!
The Tories are the head boys, and the Lib Dems are the fags, forever jumping through hoops, humiliating themselves and betraying the suckers who voted for them thinking that they were an alternative and believing all their propaganda bulldust. The Tories would be loving their debasement, bullies always do, and would be supremely confident that the Lib Dem invertebrates are in no danger of ever growing a spine.
Of course the one big snag here in the UK is that Labour are in effect little better.
Sure Tony Blair was voted in by a landslide by a populace utterly fed up with 18 years of Tory asset stripping covered by rhetoric of Orwellian proportions. How quickly they forgot, or in some cases never bothered to learn.
What many have forgotten is, and of course the press do not remind, that Blair when he came in was ensconced away with Maggie Thatcher for a long ‘briefing’. I am fairly sure that she disabused him of any high faluting moral principles to which he may have still clung. Blair learned who the ‘real masters of the world were’ and that as they had made him so they could break.
Thatcher’s earlier election victory would have been improbable had it not been for the PR generated ‘feel-good/how clever we are’ in the wake of ‘Operation Corporate’ the so called Falklands conflict.
The crowing at the time made me feel physical sick and I would certainly picked a bone or two with her if met. The bones being those of dead comrades who would not have been that way had it not been for ministerial penny-pinching and duplicity the extent of which is only revealed to those who have read widely and from an inside perspective. John Knott for one was a marked man.
That Falklands conflict of 82 was only one round and I would hazard that Argentina will soon kick off another – encouraged by the Lords of the Rings to ensure Britain keeps its place and before – if ever, we get an truly operational aircraft carrier.
In the wider scheme of things some of realise that such partisan attitudes should be confined to history for they have no place in a world facing challenges of the magnitude that WE recognise.
Canada and the EU are in the advanced stages and nearing the end of talks to establish a free trade zone. Significant? I don’t know, I’m no economist. Why are we being fed the line (lie?) that free trade is good for us?
Why is Britain keen on the tar sands? As mentioned above, old colonial ties and new tory ties? I don’t know.
How could the tar sand muck get to Britain? How about a pipeline through northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba to Hudson Bay, where tankers can carry it all year round because the Arctic will be ice free!
The graphic on pages 10 and 11 of this report:
http://www.carbontracker.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/07/Unburnable-Carbon-Full-rev2.pdf
Shows fossil fuel reserves in terms of giga-tonnes of carbon listed as assets by companies traded on exchanges there. An indicator of how invested each of the stock markets is in future fossil fuel consumption.
Guess which country supporting tar sands development in another country, while having very low fossil fuel reserves itself, is really high on the list of commitment by publicly traded companies?
Yes, frightening and worrying.
It looks like I, and my children and grandchildren (I shudder for their future seeing something like the WW1 madness but writ larger around the corner) will soon have to ‘eat cake’!
Unless of course we persuade Tweedledumb (No10) and Tweedledee (No11) to encourage more investment in renewable energy.What is that about ‘hell freezing over’?
But as long as Cameron can speak through loud mouthed oafs like Jeremy Clarkson who has bad-mouthed ‘climate change’ there will be a struggle. Maybe such incidents as linked to may make people realise that in most commentd that he makes Clarkson ends up with a mouthful of his own foot.