California disputes Canadian claims on tar-sands emissions

US state defends its environmental standards.

California’s environmental protection agency has written to the European Commission and EU member states rejecting claims from Canada about greenhouse-gas emissions from tar sands.

In October, the Commission proposed an addition to the fuel-quality directive, a higher emissions value for oil from tar sands than for other sources of fossil fuel because of its overall life-cycle impact. The decision, strongly opposed by Canada, which is rich in tar sands, must now be approved by member states.

California is the only US state that has a greenhouse-gas standard that takes into account emissions during a fuel’s life-cycle, the low-carbon fuel standard. According to a UK government official, Canadian trade representatives have been telling EU member states that this standard has failed because it is impossible to implement.

But in the letter to EU and national officials, seen by European Voice, Mary Nichols, the chairwoman of California’s Air Resource Board, said: “The principle of accounting for life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions, including those associated with production and transport of crude oil, continues to be an important feature of the low-carbon fuel standard.”

She said that, although the board is working on refinements to the low-carbon fuel standard, any suggestions that it is preparing to abandon its current approach are false.

Canadian trade representatives have also said that the standard presents a high administrative burden, but this is denied in Nichols’ letter. “Oil companies already track and report their crude oil information as a normal course of business,” she wrote. “Any additional production-related reporting going forward would be no more burdensome than those currently placed on low-carbon fuel providers.”

Canada’s position

Chris Davies, a UK Liberal MEP, said that although it would be “extraordinarily naive” for ministers to believe the Canadian government’s assertions about California’s environmental laws, he suspects the UK government is being won over.

“The UK is among those that seem to have fallen for the misinformation being put about by Canadian lobbyists,” he said, accusing Canada of pursuing “a policy of delay and obfuscation”.

The Canadian government did not respond to requests for comment.

The Commission has proposed a greenhouse-gas emissions value for oil from tar sands of 107 grams of CO2 per megajoule of energy produced. The default value for conventional crude oil is 87.5g CO2/mj.

The fuel-quality directive requires fuel suppliers to reduce the carbon footprint of fuel by 6% over the next ten years.

The EU imports very little oil from tar sands directly from Canada, but the Canadian government fears that assigning a high value to oil from tar sands might put off other buyers of its oil.

Higher emissions

Proponents of Canadian tar sands say the fuel produces only 5%-15% more greenhouse-gas emissions than the average crude oil consumed in the US, citing a study by HIS-Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a research firm. They say these marginal extra emissions are balanced by Canada having more stringent regulation and a better human-rights record than other oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, and that Canadian producers are reducing the carbon footprint of tar sands.

But other studies have put emissions at between 18%-49% higher than oil consumed in the EU, and have said that the emissions reduction potential has reached its technological limit.

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