EU lawmakers today voted for the European Parliament to push ahead with a trade deal that could encourage Canadian tar sand oil imports and make it easier for energy companies to sue governments when environmental policies threaten their profits.

The UK’s international trade minister, Liam Fox, last year circumvented parliament to approve the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada. The deal now has to be approved by European policymakers.

MEPs in the committee charged with overseeing environmental regulation today voted 40 to 24 for the European Parliament to back the deal, Reuters reports. A final decision is expected in February.

Writing in The Ecologist ahead of the vote, Mark Dearn from campaign group War on Want said the deal had already “put rocket boosters under runaway climate change by bringing high-polluting tar sands oil into Europe”.

Reacting to the vote, he told DeSmog UK:

"The committee's decision on CETA is an utter disgrace. It flies in the face of a wealth of evidence showing CETA to be bad news for the environment, food and health – not least that the EU sacrificed its own climate change legislation to appease the tar sands demands of Big Oil companies and the Canadian and US governments."

Campaigners are also concerned that the deal will make it easier for companies to sue governments that use environmental regulations to try and move their economies away from fossil fuels.

A mechanism called investor-state dispute settlements is included in the deal, and could allow companies to sue countries that ban tar sands oil. Companies have used the mechanism in Canada to oppose fracking moratoriums, and in Germany to protest the closure of nuclear power plants.

The Canadian government has also objected to EU chemical regulations on over 20 occasions between 2003 and 2011, EnergyDesk has previously revealed, leading to concerns that companies could use CETA to undermine those rules.

Update 12/01/2017 – A quote from Mark Dearn was added. A sentence on chemical regulations was also added.

Main image credit: Dru Oja Jay, Dominion via Flickr CC BY-SA

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For five long years the federal government and the oil industry have lobbied against the European Union labeling oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen as ‘dirty oil’ in its Fuel Quality Directive (FQD). A new report released yesterday reveals the recent involvement of the U.S. in the lobby offensive to keep the EU market open for bitumen exports has tipped the scales in favour of oilsands proponents.

“The sustained attacks by the U.S. and Canada on the European Union’s key legislation on transport fuel emissions seem to be paying off,” Fabian Flues of Friends of the Earth Europe, the author of the report, admits.

The report shows the EU Fuel Quality Directive, a piece of legislation designed to reduce global warming greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the EU’s transportation sector, is unlikely to acknowledge fuels from different sources of oil – conventional oil, oilsands, oil shale – have different carbon footprints. Instead all oils will more than likely be treated as having the same GHG emissions intensity 'value' in the Directive. This is exactly what Canada, the oil industy and now the U.S. have been pushing for.

“Europe is again failing to stand up effectively for its own climate policy,” Flues says.

Trade talks, not science, weakening the Fuel Quality Directive

The EU has not fallen for the federal government’s argument that bitumen produces only marginally more GHG emissions than conventional oil in extraction, processing, and use. A European Commission study found bitumen’s carbon footprint is between 12 – 40 per cent higher than conventional oil.

The report reveals trade, not science, is the cause of the EU backing off from implementing the Fuel Quality Directive as it was originally meant to be implemented. To reduce GHG emissions from transportation the Directive discourages transport fuel suppliers from selling fuels with high carbon footprints in the EU. Identifying which fuels have higher carbon footprints was meant to make things easier for fuel suppliers to reduce the GHG emissions output of their product.

“The delay and weakening of the European Fuel Quality Directive once again reveals that agreements like CETA (the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement) are less about trade and more about limiting the ability of governments to effectively regulate in the public interest,” Scott Harris, trade campaigner with the Council of Canadians, says.

Fuel Quality Directive subject of CETA talks

The report argues the U.S. and Canada are using their own ongoing trade negotiations with the EU to undermine the Fuel Quality Directive. Canada and the EU have consistently maintained their trade negotiations for the CETA and the Directive are two separate issues. The evidence indicates otherwise:

“The foreign policy think tank The Polish Insti­tute for International Affairs reported that the FQD had been raised in the CETA negotiations and there have been calls in Canada to suspend the negotiations until the high GHG value for tar sands has been resolved to Canadian satisfac­tion,” the report states.

“While other governments are trying to make communities safer, the Canadian government is using its political muscle to push things in the opposite direction so it can export high carbon tar sands oil as quickly as possible,” Mike Hudema, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, says.

“It’s astonishing that as we watch the fires spread in the Northwest Territories and the flood waters rise in the Prairies our government still isn’t getting the message – climate change is real and we need action immediately,” Hudema states.

The Globe and Mail reported as earlier as 2011 that anonymous sources had said Canada had threatened “to void the free trade deal” if the Fuel Quality Directive was implemented.

“Even before it is signed, CETA is being used to water down much-needed public policy. Imagine what will happen to regulations on both sides of the Atlantic if the deal is actually implemented,” Harris of the Council of Canadians says.

U.S. joins the lobby offensive

The U.S. in some ways has been more open about its lobbying against the Fuel Quality Directive. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman confirmed he “raised these issues [of the FQD implementation] with senior Commission officials on several occasions, including in the context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnerships (TTIP).” The TTIP is the trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU currently under negotiation.

European Commission documents obtained by Friends of the Earth Europe reveal the U.S. trade missions has “substantive concerns” with the Fuel Quality Directive singling out fuels produced from bitumen as having a higher carbon footprint than conventional oil. Like Canada and the oil industry, the U.S. wants all oil – regardless of GHG emissions – to be treated the same as conventional oil in the Directive.

It appears this new pressure from the U.S. is the straw breaking the camel’s back:

“[Media] reports claim that the system chosen by the Commission is one of averaging of all crudes – exactly what the U.S. mission had requested in its e-mail. If they are correct, the new FQD proposal will be considerably less effective in discouraging the import of highly climate damaging oil, such as tar sands. It might well be the case that the FQD is the first environmental casualty of the TTIP negotiations,” the report states.

Recently eleven members of U.S. Congress sent a letter to the US trade mission expressing their concerns “that official U.S. trade negotiations could undercut the EU’s commendable efforts to reduce carbon pollution.” 

Image Credit: OpenEuropeBlog

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As promised, multiple protests against the tar sands greeted Prime Minister Stephen Harper Thursday in London, where he became the first Canadian prime minister to address British Parliament since 1944. Harper has been using his UK trip to lobby against the proposed European Union (EU) fuel quality directive, which would label oil from the Albertan tar sands as 'highly polluting' to deter imports into Europe.

Linda Solomon writes for the Vancouver Observer, that "50 campaigners representing 30 environmental groups gathered outside the UK Parliament [to] greet Prime Minister Stephen Harper's car with anti-tar sands banners, placards and chants." One of them, Suzanne Dhaliwal, was dressed as Bridgette DePape, the Senate Page who was fired in 2011 for holding up a "Stop Harper" sign on the Canadian Senate floor.

The group protest outside Parliament was organized by the UK Tar Sands Network (TSN). Jess Worth of the TSN is quoted as saying that Thursday's protests "demonstrate just how strongly people in the UK feel about the Harper government's attempts to force their dirty tar sands oil onto Europe."

The TSN posted a YouTube video of the protest.

In a separate protest, members of an activist group calling themselves "Love Canada, Hate Tar Sands" (LCHTS) attempted to "block the Sovereign's Entrance Gate to the room where Harper was speaking," and scaled the roof of the Parliament building to try and interrupt Harper during his speech.

According to the BBC, "shouting was heard" inside, but the "speech went ahead." They also report that two women were arrested outside "on suspicion of criminal damage," and three others "detained" by Parliamentary security for trying to get into "non-public rooms."

On their tumblr blog, LCHTS posted videos of their protest on the rooftop of Parliament. They also posted a statement, saying:

"From further marginalising historically shunted Indigenous people, to muzzling world class climate scientists, Prime Minister Harper has shown time and again that nothing will stand between him and developing dirty tar sands, even though tar sands will create unprecedented global warming. Now Harper brings his circus of oil peddlers to Europe to interfere in EU climate legislation, to push his monstrous industry onto Europeans."

They add that by staging Thursday's protest they "have acted, in solidarity with those resisting Harper everywhere, to STOP CLIMATE CRIMINAL HARPER."

British Prime Minister David Cameron's government has proven a staunch supporter of Harper's tar sands push. But some in the UK government are pushing back.

The TSN reports on their site that British MPs have tabled an Early Day Motion to recognize the damaging effects of tar sands exploitation, resist Canadian lobbying against the EU fuel quality directive, and keep tar sands oil imports out of Europe. 7 MPs from 4 different parties have signed. Solomon notes that "other MPs will now be encouraged to sign, in the run-up to an EU Member States' vote later this year."

Harper's final destination in Europe is the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland this week. At G8, Harper is expected to continue lobbying against the EU fuel quality directive. He's also likely to advocate for the Canada-European Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) which, according to citizens' organization the Council of Canadians, could support tar sands expansion by "[empowering] European corporations to attack environmental and health measures" and "[restricting] our Internet freedom [by criminalizing] certain online behaviour."

Image Credit: Rajan Zaveri / No Tar Sands Facebook Page

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