EU: Not Buying Canada's Green Spin

Today, the European Union showed that it isn’t going to back down in the face of Canadian pressure. Canada has been lobbying hard to convince the EU to ignore the higher carbon content of tar sands oil in its new Fuel Quality Directive, even going as far as to threaten a trade challenge. The EU, however, has decided to call a spade a spade and is planning to assign a higher carbon value to tar sands oil than conventional oil.

 

The EU has been developing a new policy to reduce the climate impact of transportation fuels. The rules will mean European countries will be looking to buy more low carbon fuels, and less high carbon fuels like the tar sands.Tar sands has been given a 22% higher carbon value than conventional oil.

 

Right now, Europe doesn’t buy a lot of tar sands oil from Canada. So why has our government staked so much on this decision?

 

In this case, perception matters. The EU decision follows a similar decision (equally lobbied against by Canada) in California. California has also identified tar sands as a higher carbon fuel in its Low Carbon Fuel Standard. One jurisdiction can be brushed off as rogue, but now you have two. The reality is that when other states make an honest attempt to reduce the climate impact of fuels, tar sands quickly sinks to the bottom of the wish list. And, as other countries move to deal with global warming, more will follow this path.

 

The tar sands industry and federal government often claim that Canada is being unfairly victimized. Yet a report released today by the federal Commissioner for Environment and Sustainable Development provided another scathing assessment of the federal government’s role in dealing with climate change and the impacts of tar sands. Our diplomats try to smooth over concerns about tar sands by claiming that Canada is acting to deal with the problems. Meanwhile at home, there’s still no plan to tackle global warming or regulate the impacts of the tar sands.

 

Europe, like California, has called Canada’s spin.