SHAWN MCCARTHY<\/p>\n
Jan. 21, 2012 9:34AM EST
\nIt was the 2009 annual summer retreat of the Green Group – the chief
\nexecutives, presidents and executive directors of the largest
\nenvironmental organizations in the United States – and their Canadian
\ncounterparts had wrangled an invitation for the first time.<\/p>\n
The U.S. environmental movement appeared to be on a roll, with a new ally
\nin the White House, the House of Representatives on the verge of passing a
\nclimate bill, and guarded optimism about a breakthrough at the United
\nNations summit in Copenhagen later that year.<\/p>\n
That June, the green leaders gathered at the Airlie Center, a historic
\nfarmhouse turned conference centre an hour’s drive from Washington, in
\nrural Virginia. Billed as an “island of thought,” Airlie is a sylvan
\nretreat for American progressives: It was there that Martin Luther King
\nJr. laid plans for the Poor People’s Campaign and U.S. Senator Gaylord
\nNelson announced plans for the first national Earth Day.<\/p>\n
For the Canadian eco-activists, the Airlie session had an equivalent
\nsignificance, marking the moment when the broad and powerful U.S.
\nenvironmental movement turned its focus – and well-financed campaign
\ntactics \u2013 against Canada’s booming oil sands.<\/p>\n
The concerted attack that began there set the stage for this week’s
\ndecision by the White House to reject a proposed oil-sands pipeline
\nthrough the U.S. heartland.<\/p>\n
Green groups on both sides of the border are vowing to keep up pressure on
\nthe Achilles heel of the Canadian oil industry – the multibillion-dollar
\npipelines needed to transport Canadian crude to markets in the U.S. and
\nAsia. In doing so, the environmental groups are rushing headlong into a
\nconfrontation with the Conservative government, which is determined to get
\na pipeline built through British Columbia and has criticized foreign
\ncritics as troublesome “special interests” who have no business getting
\ninvolved.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the government wants to frame the issue in traditional economic
\nnationalist terms, draping the oil sands in the maple leaf and shielding
\nCanada’s economic engine from costly interference from abroad. The reality
\nis that the oil sands – and Canada’s place on the world’s energy map – are
\na global concern. And there are stakeholders on both sides of the debate
\nwell beyond our borders.
\nA light switches on<\/p>\n
While the oil sands were not unknown to U.S. activists in the summer of
\n2009, the Americans attending the green summit were consumed with their
\nown battles. But the Canadians arrived with a blunt message to look north:
\nIn Alberta\u2019s oil sands, they warned, multinational companies were rapidly
\nexpanding production of a particularly nasty source of crude.<\/p>\n
As 20 top U.S. environmentalists sat silently, Greenpeace Canada executive
\ndirector Bruce Cox gave a presentation that spelled out the oil sands\u2019
\nenormous impact and the surge in greenhouse-gas emissions that would
\naccompany the massive expansion that was planned by the industry and
\nendorsed by federal and provincial governments.<\/p>\n
One graphic was particularly eye-catching: a map of existing and proposed
\npipelines, resembling a spider web spinning out from Alberta across the
\ncentral United States, to carry oil-sands bitumen to U.S. refineries.
\n“It was a clarion call,” Mr. Cox said this week in an interview. “And we
\nhad a specific ask: \u2018We want you to engage on this subject. We want you to
\nput it on the radar.”<\/p>\n
By all accounts, the Greenpeace session was a galvanizing moment. Groups
\nlike the influential Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) had
\ncampaigned against the oil sands for years, but now the top leadership was
\ndirectly engaged, and other groups picked up the ball.
\n“The meeting with the Canadian groups really made a difference,” NRDC
\npresident Frances Beinecke, one of the attendees, said from her New York
\noffice. “It was a very important session for elevating our attention in
\nthe U.S. to this issue and the interrelationship between the two
\ncountries.”<\/p>\n
In response to politicians and others who promote Canadian oil as an
\n“ethical” alternative to imports from Islamic plutocracies and conflict
\nregions, she said, “We want a cleaner energy future, and taking us from
\none addiction to another doesn’t move us forward in that regard.”<\/p>\n
The counter-punch<\/p>\n
The Obama administration’s decision this week to impose a further delay in
\napproving TransCanada Corp.’s $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline project
\nbrought howls of outrage from Republicans and the oil industry, and
\n“profound disappointment” from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The State
\nDepartment did invite the company to reapply when it has completed the
\nrerouting of the pipeline around the ecologically sensitive Sand Hills
\nregion in Nebraska \u2013 essentially punting the final decision until after
\nnext November’s elections.<\/p>\n
Stung, the Harper government has lashed out at foreign environmental
\ngroups, characterizing them as “radicals” and “jet-setting celebrities”
\nfuelling pipeline controversies in Canada. Federal regulators are now
\nholding a public review of Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway pipeline, and
\nthe government has warned that foreign groups are financing delaying
\ntactics to undermine the development in the oil sands.<\/p>\n
The Harper government itself has actively lobbied in state, federal and
\nEuropean capitals to oppose policies that it views as detrimental to
\nCanadian oil. Yet it has good reason to worry about the globalization of
\nthe opposition. The stakes are enormous, and not only for the Prime
\nMinister’s home province.<\/p>\n
Oil is now Canada’s largest export by far, and the country ranks third in
\ntotal crude reserves behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Meanwhile critics
\nworry that the oil boom is transforming the country into something of a
\npetro state, driving the loonie higher at the expense of Central Canadian
\nmanufacturing.<\/p>\n
In the U.S., activists have targeted fossil-fuel production and use, with
\ncampaigns against coal, oil and the controversial “fracking” extraction of
\nshale gas. But oil is the most politically divisive.<\/p>\n
U.S. groups such as the NRDC have been active in Canada, and foreign
\nfoundations have funnelled money to Canadian environmental groups and
\nactivists, in some cases specifically to organize opposition to the
\nGateway pipeline through B.C.<\/p>\n
Even in Europe, the Canadian government is battling an effort within the
\nEuropean Parliament – backed by well-organized activists \u2013 to pass
\nlow-carbon fuel regulations that would rate oil-sands crude as the world’s
\nworst from the standpoint of greenhouse-gas emissions.<\/p>\n
Yet the environmental community is simply following the pattern of the
\ninternational oil industry, which seeks to influence policy wherever it
\nhas operations. And they are also following a known script for global
\ncampaigns, whether to save the Brazilian rain forest, to protect tiger
\nhabitats in Asia or, indeed, to halt logging in British Columbia’s
\nClayoquot Sound.<\/p>\n
Canadian oil producers are now finding they have to respond to the
\nheightened international campaign against them, said David Collyer,
\npresident of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, speaking
\nfrom Washington, where he was meeting U.S. colleagues, Canadian embassy
\nstaff and analysts to assess the political climate for Canadian oil
\nexports in the 2012 election year.<\/p>\n
“It’s a global business, and it’s hard to draw boxes around these things,”
\nhe said. “Ultimately, it is for Canadians to decide whether those voices
\nare relevant to the debate or not.”<\/p>\n
Who’s winning?<\/p>\n
International groups have seized on the Alberta development as a potent
\nsymbol in the much bigger fight over climate change. Mr. Collyer argued
\nthat the groups have been acting out of fear, trying to win a battle to
\nshow that they are not losing the war.<\/p>\n
Since the optimistic days of the Green Group summit, the U.S. Senate has
\nfailed to pass climate legislation, Mr. Obama has proved disappointing on
\nemission regulations and international climate talks have faltered.<\/p>\n
In turn, the environmental campaign has provoked a public-relations
\nresponse in Canada: the founding of EthicalOil.org, a group with close
\nties to the Harper government and the industry. The group has been highly
\ncritical of the foreign groups that have financed campaigns in Canada.
\n“These groups unfairly target Canada and our oil sands because it’s an
\neasy, risk-free target for them,” EthicalOil spokeswoman Kathryn Marshall
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
But Rick Smith, executive director of Toronto-based Environmental Defence
\nand an attendee at the 2009 Green Group summit, said the Canadian
\nactivists sought out the support of U.S. colleagues to help even the
\nplaying field against the hugely powerful oil industry.
\n“Canadian environmentalists were working on these issues long before we
\nsaw any greenbacks,” Mr. Smith said. “It was really the aggressive
\nexpansion of the tar sands themselves that has made this into a
\ncontinental issue and an international issue.”<\/p>\n
Canadian officials play down the climate impacts, saying the oil sands
\nrepresent only 5 per cent of total emissions in Canada and that this
\ncountry accounts for only 2 per cent of global emissions. But critics say
\nthe country’s per-capita emissions are among the highest in the world, and
\nOttawa will not be able to reduce them if oil-sands production grows as
\nexpected.
\nChoke point<\/p>\n
Shortly after the Airlie meeting, the NRDC’s Ms. Beinecke visited Fort
\nMcMurray, Alta., along with Margie Alt, president of Environment America,
\na green umbrella group. Both women say they were awed by the sheer scale
\nof the bitumen mines run by Suncor Energy and Syncrude.
\n“Clearly the overriding concern of the environmental community globally is
\nclimate change,” she said. “And it really doesn’t matter where it comes
\nfrom or where you burn it.”<\/p>\n
But she said it is wrong to assume that the NRDC has an inordinate focus
\non Alberta’s oil producers. The sprawling environmental charity – with a
\nannual budget of $100-million (U.S.) – has offices across the United
\nStates and one in Beijing. It works on the full range of environmental
\nissues, including coal mining, shale gas and hydraulic fracturing,
\nrenewable energy and clean oceans.<\/p>\n
But Ottawa and Alberta can expect environmentalists across borders to keep
\nup the pressure, whether on a Keystone revival, the Gateway project or any
\nfuture proposal. Having gotten nowhere persuading governments to rein in
\noil-sands growth in the first place, they will keep looking to block the
\ninfrastructure it takes to get the oil to market.<\/p>\n
_____________________________________<\/p>\n
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Special thanks to Richard Charter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SHAWN MCCARTHY Jan. 21, 2012 9:34AM EST It was the 2009 annual summer retreat of the Green Group – the chief executives, presidents and executive directors of the largest environmental organizations in the United States – and their Canadian counterparts had wrangled an invitation for the first time. The U.S. environmental movement appeared to be … Continue reading Globe and Mail: The day the oil-sands battle went global<\/span>