[Vision2020] Canada Threatens Retaliation if EU Tightens Regulations on Tar Sands Oil

[Ted Moffett]

Exellent quote from the following article:

“Being addicted to oil is bad enough, but as easy-to-find oil starts
to run out, this legislation prevents us getting addicted to ever
dirtier forms of oil,” Urbancic said.

http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/canada-threatens-eu-tar-sands-news-510951

Canada is threatening trade retaliation if the EU tries to tighten
regulations on oil from its highly polluting tar sands in a Fuel
Quality Directive, according to documents seen by EurActiv.

The papers emerged after a freedom of information request to see EU
documents related to tar sands – also known as oil sands – was lodged
by Transport and Environment, an environmental organisation.

But the documents were only released in heavily censored form by the
EU Ombudsman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros because full disclosure “would
seriously affect the current trade negotiations and Canada’s relations
with the EU,” Diamandouros said in a statement.

Negotiations between Ottawa and Brussels on an EU-Canada Comprehensive
Economic and Trade Agreement worth as much as $20 billion have been
ongoing since 2009.

The Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht has described them as the EU's
"most ambitious [free trade negotiations] so far."

But one EU ‘steering brief’ about a June 2010 meeting between the
Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Isabelle Muller,
secretary-general of the oil refining association Europia, revealed
how the two issues had become intertwined.

“Canada has been lobbying the Commission and Member States intensively
to avoid a separate default value for fuel derived from tar sands,”
the document says. “It has raised the issue in the context of
EU-Canada negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement.”

Deleted paragraphs

Key deleted paragraphs in other documents “reveal the tensions that
the commission’s proposals regarding oil sands have generated among
the Canadian authorities and make reference to the measures those
authorities are envisaging to adopt, in case their interests are
negatively affected by the outcome of the oil sands issue,”
Diamandouros said.

Nusa Urbancic, of Transport and Environment, described such
revelations as “the tip of the iceberg”.

Another document released in the batch, dated 5 July 2010, sourced to
an EU Commissioner and titled ‘Agenda point: Fuel Quality Directive
Article 7a methodology – Canadian oil sands’, outlines EU strategies
for dealing with a Canadian case brought to the World Trade
Organisation (WTO).

DG Trade, the EU’s trade directorate, "does not believe that the WTO
would find in Canada’s favour,” the document says, but only if the
commission could:

Demonstrate that the proposed [greenhouse gas emissions] value [for
tar sands] is based on solid technical and scientific ground;
Show that other sources of high greenhouse gas crude oils (for
example, Estonian oil shale) are similarly treated;
Show that there was clear environmental logic for any groupings of
sources of crude oils;
Undertake to update and add to the default values.
These conditions were met in the EU's directive but environmentalists
claim that DG Trade’s positioning later changed, under pressure from
Ottawa over the Free Trade agreement.

“We know that Canada has been very active towards DG Trade,” the Dutch
Green MEP Bas Eickhout told EurActiv. “They suddenly became very
active on the issue and it was clear that they were being pushed by
Canada.”

Fuel quality vote

News of the Canadian trade threats comes as experts in the EU’s fuel
quality committee prepare to vote on a Fuel Quality Directive on 23
February. The directive would assign fuel from tar sands a higher
greenhouse gas ranking than crude oil, reflecting the greater damage
that scientists say its production causes the environment.

“Being addicted to oil is bad enough, but as easy-to-find oil starts
to run out, this legislation prevents us getting addicted to ever
dirtier forms of oil,” Urbancic said.

“To throw this important and smartly designed law in the bin for the
sake of a trade agreement with one country would be incredibly
irresponsible. Member states can not let that happen,” she said.

Observers currently expect deadlock in the fuel quality committee
vote, which would push the issue back to EU ministers in the European
Council.

Diplomatic démarche

An intense Canadian diplomatic démarche has apparently not been
repelled by powerful member states with domestic and international oil
interests, such as Britain, the Netherlands, Poland and France.

EurActiv has seen several letters sent to European ministers this
winter explaining Ottawa’s case - that the EU legislation unfairly
singles out tar sands in comparison to other crude oils on which, it
says, there has not been as much disclosure about their lifecycle
greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, sent a missive to EU
Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger warning that the directive was
“discriminatory and potentially violates the European Union’s
international trade obligations.”

But the lobbying has not all been one way. On 16 February, eight Nobel
peace laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, sent a letter
urging the EU to "do the right thing" and “keep highly polluting tar
sands oil out of Europe.”

A Canadian government representative did not respond to requests for comment.

Positions:
"It’s a disgrace that Canadian diplomats are holding up our
continent’s climate efforts," Franziska Achterberg, a spokesperson for
Greenpeace said. "EU governments should reject this intervention and
not allow Kyoto-abandoning Canada and the oil industry to block their
domestic climate policy."
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett