“This is the biggest challenge as we have at the moment as a company,” Ben van Beurden, chief executive of oil giant Shell, said recently. “The fact that societal acceptance of the energy system as we have it is just disappearing.”

Speaking at the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston on March 9, van Beurden described the growing tensions between his industry, which has created our fossil fuel dependent energy system, and the public, which is demanding a switch to clean energy: “I do think trust has been eroded to the point where it starts to become a serious issue for our long-term future.”

The world’s largest oil companies are increasingly faced with public pressure to do something about their impact on climate change. And increasingly we’re seeing their chief executives responding. The question is though, how much is for real and what's just greenwash?

It’s been just over a year since the Paris climate deal was agreed in December 2015 and slowly corporate annual reports are being filed. In these, companies take stock of the year’s changes and assess the future risks to their business. Meanwhile new strategies and corporate statements are being issued. Statoil recently released a climate roadmap and ConocoPhillips has come out in support of the US remaining part of the Paris Agreement.

But what are we to make of all of this? Do the actions of these oil giants match the big words put out by their chief executives when it comes to climate change? Has anything really changed since Paris?

Royal Dutch Shell

It feels like Shell is going through a bit of an identity crisis. On the one hand, it’s been pretty clear about the risk climate change poses to its business and the need to transition to renewable energy. But on the other hand, it sees this as a slow, decadal process and has a record of lobbying against climate action.

Last week headlines were made when Shell announced it was selling off most of its Canadian oil sands assets. Mixed in with this also was the news that it would now be tying 10 percent of its directors’ bonuses to how well they manage greenhouse gas emissions in their operations.

It also aims to invest $1 billion in renewable energy by the end of the decade.

But a look at the bigger picture shows that while these are steps in the right direction, they’re relatively small steps given Shell’s total annual spending comes to $25 billion.

And according to a recent article written by Shell’s climate advisor David Hone, the company has “no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio over our investment horizon of 10-20 years”.

That said, Shell appears to be somewhat ahead of the curve compared to other oil majors. Maybe it's making up for lost time, or perhaps it doesn't want to be left in the dust. Either way, it's not entirely burying its head in the sand. In its annual report last year for the year up to December 2015 it was the first company to recognize that policy action and legal risks due to rising climate change concerns are mounting. These same concerns are repeated in this year’s report.

However, this comes after the Guardian revealed that Shell knew of the impact fossil fuels would have on the climate as far back as 1991. In a film on temperature and sea level rise the oil giant accurately predicts what scientists now all agree on about climate change.

Yet, despite the company’s own data, it has spent decades investing in unconventional oil and gas projects. Projects which it has always known are incompatible with tackling climate change.

BP

Meanwhile, BP is facing significant pressure to boost production. Part of this effort means it continues to expand into more and more challenging projects in search of bigger returns. But it’s having some trouble.

After strong public opposition to its plans to drill in the pristine waters of the Great Australian Bight it pulled out of the deepwater venture. And now it’s planning a similarly controversial project: drilling for oil near a recently discovered coral reef off the coast of Brazil.

The company also isn’t performing as well as it would have hoped, with share prices currently sitting 30 percent lower than before its Deepwater Horizon disaster.  All of this has led to rumours of takeovers, with reports last week that Exxon was eyeing up the British oil giant.

And as it continues to lay off workers from its drilling operations on the North Sea, a DeSmog UK investigation shows BP has been working hard to boost its social license by putting BP-branded tutors in primary and secondary schools all across Aberdeen.

In the US, however, BP chief executive Bob Dudley seems encouraged by the change in winds that came with a new White House administration. Dudley recently said that the political situation meant business is much more open now, saying that the White House is “very interested” in BP, “more so than at any times in the last eight years”.

As BP continues to push into riskier projects – and riskier in all senses of the word, from its operations to the climate and the marine environment – it will be interesting to see what its annual report (yet to be published) makes of all of this. Last year’s simply recognizes the impact that complying with climate change regulations and laws may have on its profit margin.

Chevron

Compared to last year, Chevron’s come a long way. Whereas its chief executive John Watson boasted last year that the world will always need Big Oil this year it too has publicly recognized to its investors that climate change lawsuits can pose a risk to its profits.

In its annual report for the year up to December 2016 it states: “increasing attention to climate change risks has resulted in an increased possibility of governmental investigations and, potentially, private litigation against the company.”

But amidst growing demand from shareholders for corporate disclosure on climate risks, Chevron this month said in a quietly released report that a transition to lower-carbon energy sources would pose only a “minimal risk” to its operations because it’s investing in these options too. It then goes on to explain that oil and gas will remain the fundamental energy sources.

ExxonMobil

Like BP, Exxon fails to go beyond the impact of climate regulations on its profits. The company however continues to be in the spotlight, from investigations into its long history of funding climate denial to former chief executive Rex Tillerson becoming part of the new White House administration – the same Rex Tillerson who, as Exxon's chief, went by the alias 'Wayne Tracker' when emailing colleagues to discuss climate change.

Since Tillerson left the helm, Exxon has made some attempts to improve its climate credentials. The new chief executive Darren Woods publicly endorsed the Paris climate deal and just weeks after he took over from Tillerson, Susan Avery, a climate scientist, was appointed to the company’s board.

This comes after the company’s shareholders failed to do just that during Exxon’s annual general meeting last summer. During this meeting three other climate related initiatives were voted down including one to stress test the business to avoid 2C warming.

However, no major shift on strategy was announced during Woods' first speech on March 1 since being appointed to lead Exxon. Instead, investment priorities will continue to be in oil and gas.

The company also appears to be taking full advantage of the new US administration’s warm welcome to oil lobbyists as it pushes for weaker regulations on the oil and gas industry.

Photo: Drew Kolb via Flickr | CC 2.0

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The fossil fuel industry lobbied the B.C. government more than 22,000 times between April 2010 and October 2016, according to a report released Wednesday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives as part of the Corporate Mapping Project.

The report also found that 48 fossil fuel companies and associated industry groups have donated $5.2 million to B.C. political parties between 2008 and 2015 — 92 per cent of which has gone to the BC Liberals.

The analysis found seven of the top 10 political donors from the fossil fuel industry are also B.C.’s most active lobbyists.

The Corporate Mapping Project is a six-year research and public engagement initiative jointly led by the University of Victoria, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Alberta-based Parkland Institute.

Researchers have painstakingly analyzed lobbying and political donation records to demonstrate the extensive political influence of the fossil fuel industry in B.C.

“I was definitely surprised at the sheer volume of lobbying contacts that we found,” Nick Graham, lead author of the report and PhD candidate at the University of Victoria, told DeSmog Canada.

Spectra Energy, Enbridge, FortisBC, Encana, Chevron Canada, CAPP and Teck Resources conducted the majority of registered lobbying contacts, more than 19,500 in total since the lobbyist registry was first initiated in 2010 — an average of 14 lobbying contacts in B.C. per day.

“We were expecting to see some overlap between political donations and lobbying,” Graham said. “Part of what donations help achieve is access to government so we certainly expected to see some of that.”

The top 10 fossil fuel industry donors were responsible for $3.8 million in contributions to the BC Liberals and $270,000 to the BC NDP.

The Corporate Mapping Project report, co-authored by Shannon Daub of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Bill Carroll, professor of sociology at the University of Victoria, is the first systematic analysis of fossil fuel lobbying in B.C.

Top 10 fossil fuel industry donors in B.C. Source: CCPA, Corporate Mapping Project.

Clear Connection Between Lobbying, Donations and Policy Outcomes

“There is a fairly clear connection between lobbying, donations and policy outcomes that is quite troubling,” Daub told DeSmog Canada.

“It can be difficult to draw a line between a political donation or a meeting and policy because so little information is released to the public about what is going on behind closed doors,” Daub said.

But, she added, a more broad analysis like this can help connect the dots.

“We did note the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, for example, in a one year period between October 2015 and August 2016, reported 201 lobbying contacts with the provincial government specifically in relation to the climate leadership plan.”

“And of course that plan turned out to not be much of a plan at all,” Daub added.

The analysis found 28 per cent of lobbying by the top fossil fuel lobbyists was with cabinet ministers.

Several cabinet ministers were the frequent target of lobbying contacts, the most popular being Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman, who was listed in 733 contacts with the top 10 fossil fuel firms.

The other most contacted senior ministers are Premier Christy Clark (618 contacts), Minister of Energy and Mines Bill Bennett (437), Environment Minister Mary Polak (354) and Finance Minister Mike de Jong (330).

“It really does speak to the development of these close relationships,” Graham said. “You do see particular firms heavily targeting individuals. There is this really tight, if not cozy, ongoing relationship that develops and the perspective of the two become quite closely aligned.”

Companies such as Encana, with significant operations in B.C.’s natural gas plays focused heavily on lobbying Natural Gas Development Minister Coleman, the analysis found.

Source: CCPA, Corporate Mapping Project

Corporate Influence Far Outweighs Environmental Voices

Graham added the analysis was shaped in part by the B.C. government’s push for increased extractive industry projects in the province for nearly the last decade.

“The paper began from the perspective of seeing this really incredible push around expanding fossil fuel development in the province especially around natural gas and the really aggressive promotion of the LNG industry in particular by the government.”

“Part of our question was, ‘how can we explain this? What explains this?’ ” Graham said.

“What we found are there are multiple explanations that point to the structural power of industry and the provincial government’s reliance on resource rent. But also major corporate influence: the ability of corporations to have these stores of capital to pressure government on an ongoing basis.”

The analysis found a total of 1,300 lobby contacts between the government and environmental or non-governmental organizations during the same timeframe.

Daub said there is clearly not level access to provincial decision-makers in B.C.

“What shows really clearly from these numbers is that we have one industry with a very disproportionate level of access to government and government policy,” she said.

B.C.’s Ongoing Transparency Problem

B.C. has some of the weakest political donation rules in the country, which allow unlimited donations from individuals, foreigners, corporations and unions.

“Clearly it’s just time to ban big money in politics all together. One of the recommendations in our report is to put a stop to corporate and union donations and a cap on individual contributions.”

Federally, political parties cannot accept donations from corporations or unions and provinces like Quebec place a $100 limit on personal donations.

“It’s supposed to be one person, one vote,” Daub said. “Instead in B.C. it’s more like one dollar, one vote.”

A level democratic playing field is important for the public to have confidence in the political system but also to feel they can meaningfully participate in the process, Daub said.

Beyond problems with special interest dollars flooding the political process, B.C. also has poor transparency requirements when it comes to lobbying.

Lobbyists must register to lobby in B.C. and provide a list of intended meetings. However, there is no official record kept that distinguishes between intended and actual meetings.

Any meetings requested by public officials are not registered.

In addition, lobby records do not give the public detailed information about the content of meetings.

“Teck is one of the biggest lobbyists in the province among industry groups and they have a particular focus on MLAs,” Daub said. “But what they report they’ve lobbied on is things like ‘mining,’ or ‘employment and training’ or ‘aboriginal affairs.’ ”

“That doesn’t tell us anything about what they’re actually talking to these public officials about.”

Daub said better records should be kept of lobbying interactions that gives the public a decent account of when and how frequently these meetings are taking place and what public policy matters are at stake.

“A more transparent system would make it much easier for the public to find out what is going on in these closed door meetings.”

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A court in Toronto will soon begin deliberating over whether or not to seize Chevron's Canadian assets in order to force the company to comply with an $9.5-billion judgement in Ecuador.

The company doesn’t deny that Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2000, deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon, resulting in massive environmental devastation and a health crisis affecting thousands of people. But the company claims it did its part to clean up the rainforest.

But the settlement Chevron had with the Ecuadorian government and the state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, does not preclude citizens affected by that oil pollution from seeking damages. Ecuadorian plaintiffs first filed a suit against the company in 1993. Chevron lost a high-profile trial in Ecuador in 2011, and every Ecuadorian court that has considered the evidence since then — including an appeals court and the country's Supreme Court — has ruled against Chevron.

Yet still the company refuses to pay. Chevron has even gone venue shopping in an attempt to avoid paying for a cleanup of its toxic mess — filing an investor-state dispute at the Hague, pressing RICO charges against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers in a New York court. But the communities in Ecuador affected by Chevron’s pollution have not remained idle, and have instead pursued Chevron in Canada to try and collect on the company's debt.

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously in 2015 that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs could pursue an enforcement action against Chevron. In the majority opinion, Justice Clément Gascon wrote: “In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are increasingly called upon to recognize and enforce judgments from other jurisdictions. Sometimes, successful recognition and enforcement in another forum is the only means by which a foreign judgment creditor can obtain its due.”

Now, in an open letter released this week, more than a dozen Canadian organizations, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Idle No More Canada, MiningWatch, Sierra Club British Columbia, United Steelworkers, and Unifor, have called Chevron out for its attempts to abuse the civil justice system and evade paying the Ecuador judgment.

“While Chevron continues its international litigation ‘shell game’ thousands of people continue to be systematically poisoned and suffer daily from Chevron's refusal to pay a $9.5 billion judgment to clean up its toxic waste in Ecuador,” the letter states. “Chevron's refusal to honor the judgment against it has forced these communities to come to Canada in a last ditch effort to seize assets to force Chevron to comply with the rule of law.”

"We are grateful that the people of Canada, just like their Supreme Court, have chosen to side with those of us affected by Chevron's deplorable actions when it polluted our communities and water supply,” Humberto Piaguaje, President of the Union of Affected Communities in Ecuador, who will be attending the court sessions in Canada, said in a statement. “The indigenous peoples of Ecuador deserve full access to justice and a healthy environment so that we and our Amazonian neighbors can live with dignity.”

There are signs, however, that Chevron is already attempting to circumvent enforcement of any ruling against the company in Canada. Recent reports have stated that Chevron is currently trying to sell several billion-dollars-worth of its Canadian assets. After insisting the original trial over its pollution in the Amazon be held in an Ecuadorian court, Chevron stripped its assets from the country, which some saw as a deliberate attempt to avoid having to pay any adverse judgement against the company. The fear is that Chevron is attempting the same thing in Canada.

Canadian Civil Society: Freeze Chevron Assets, Use To Cover #Ecuador Judgement on #Amazon Destruction https://t.co/ZL1Y4l8TNS #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 13, 2016

In their letter, the groups call on Canadian authorities to stop Chevron from selling its Canadian assets before a decision can be reached in the trial, stating in the letter that it "would set a terrible precedent for other corporations intending to evade responsibility for environmental and human rights crimes."

Chevron’s tactics of delay and obfuscation are nothing new for the oil industry, of course. BP held out for two years before finally agreeing to pay $1 billion to fishermen and others affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. And the recent #ExxonKnew scandal erupted after it was discovered that the oil giant’s own scientists had been warning of the dangers of carbon pollution leading to runaway climate change since at least the 1970s — but Exxon continued to fund climate denial anyway.

Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director Caitlyn Vernon said that oil companies have operated with impunity for years, despite leaving a legacy of environmental destruction and human rights abuses. "Whether in Canada or around the world, oil companies such as Chevron, Enbridge and Kinder Morgan must be held accountable for oil spills, climate change impacts, and their treatment of local and indigenous populations," she said.

Now, environmentalists say, the Canadian court system has the opportunity to see some small measure of justice is done in this precedent-setting case.

"The Canadian environmental and human rights community has joined forces with the affected communities in Ecuador because we recognize this to be one of the most important corporate accountability cases in history," said Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate & Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. "Chevron must not be allowed to evade its legal and moral responsibilities simply because it has the might to fight on indefinitely in the courts.”  

Image Credit: Oil pollution in Lago Agrio, November 2007. Texaco operated dozens of drilling sites in the area before pulling out of Ecuador altogether. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

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A new report recently released by InfluenceMap shows a number of oil and gas companies publicly throwing their support behind climate initiatives are simultaneously obstructing those same efforts through lobbying activities.

The report, Big Oil and the Obstruction of Climate Regulations, comes on the heels of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a list of climate measures released by the CEOs of 10 major oil and gas companies including BP, Shell, Statoil and Total.

According to InfluenceMap the initiative is an attempt by leading energy companies to “improve their image in the face of longstanding criticism of their business practices ahead of UN COP 21 climate talks in Paris.”

“The big European companies behind the OGCI…will come under ever greater scrutiny, as the distance between the companies’ professed positions and the realities of the lobbying actions of their trade bodies grows ever starker,” InfluenceMap stated in a press release.

The group’s analysis shows a major disconnect between climate rhetoric and action among three key policy strands: carbon tax, emissions trading and greenhouse has emissions regulations.

The findings show companies like Shell and Total publicly support carbon pricing while at the same time support trade organizations that systematically obstruct the legislation’s implementation.

Oil majors BP, Chevron and Exxon also support these lobby groups but spend less time publicly supporting a price on carbon.  

Dylan Tanner, executive director of InfluenceMap, said industry is becoming more cautious of public oversight and as a result, has become subtler with its efforts to subvert climate progress. 

“Companies like Shell appear to have shifted their direct opposition to climate legislation to certain key trade associations in the wake of increasing scrutiny,” Tanner said.

“Investors and engagers need to be aware that these powerful energy and chemicals-sector trade bodies are financed by, and act on the instruction of, their key members and should thus be regarded as extensions of such corporate-member activity and positions."

The report shows Shell’s official messaging is wildly inconsistent with the positions of its trade associations.

Shell, for example, states on its website, “we support an international framework that puts a price on CO2.” However, green taxation working group BusinessEurope warned against such measures, suggesting they could threaten the “international competitiveness of EU industry.”

Shell executive An Theeuwes is chair of BusinessEurope's Green Taxation Working Group.*

Excerpt from InfluenceMap report shows disconnect between Shell's corporate statements and those of trade organizations supported by Shell.

Shell is also on the board of a powerful chemicals trade body in Europe, the CEFIC, that lobbied aggressively against the European Emissions Trading Scheme.

Shell is also a member of the American Petroleum Institute and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, North America's two most powerful industry lobby groups actively involved in opposing climate legislation. API's CEO recently criticized the UN climate talks as driven by a “narrow political ideology” and CAPP has previously disregarded opposition to the Alberta oilsands as merely "ideological" while arguing against new emissions standards. 

"If oil and gas companies calling for a price on carbon want to be taken seriously it is imperative that they commit both to calling on governments to implement such a policy and at the same time ensuring that all their lobbying is 100 per cent consistent with this objective,” Anthony Hobley, CEO of Carbon Tracker, said.  

“This is a strong line to take that has to be held accountable by investors, shareholders, governments and the public."

Carbon Tracker recently released a report that finds energy companies rely too heavily on industry scenarios that project high fossil fuel consumption in the future. The analysis shows industry uses high demand assumptions “to justify new and costly capital investment to shareholders.”

Companies that are inconsistent in what they say publicly and do behind the scenes don’t deserve to be taken seriously, Hobley said.

This kind of disingenuous activity “should be seen for what it is,” he said: “a cynical attempt to manipulate public opinion and create the perception amongst shareholders that the company is taking the issue of climate change seriously."

* This article was updated to reflect An Theeuwes' position as chair of BusinessEurope's Green Taxation Working Group.

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Chevron lost a high-profile pollution case in Ecuador in 2011 and was ordered to pay $9.5 billion for cleanup of billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon rainforest. So far, the company hasn’t paid a dime — but a recent ruling in Canada might finally force Chevron to pay up.

Chevron appealed the 2011 ruling all the way to Ecuador's highest court, the National Court of Justice, which voted 5-0 in 2013 against the company. But Chevron still refuses to comply with the ruling, and since the Big Oil behemoth has no assets in Ecuador, the plaintiffs were forced to seek enforcement of the decision elsewhere.

Last Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously to allow Ecuadorian plaintiffs to pursue just such an enforcement action. In the majority opinion, Justice Clément Gascon wrote that the ruling had implications for attempts to hold the entire global oil industry accountable for its pollution and other abuses.

“In a world in which businesses, assets and people cross borders with ease, courts are increasingly called upon to recognize and enforce judgments from other jurisdictions,” Gascon wrote in the 7-0 ruling, according to The Globe & Mail. “Sometimes, successful recognition and enforcement in another forum is the only means by which a foreign judgment creditor can obtain its due.”

Some 30,000 Ecuadorians have been affected by the oil pollution in the Amazon, left behind when Texaco (which Chevron bought in 2000) ceased operating hundreds of oil wells in the country in 1990.

Humberto Piaguaje, the Coordinator of the Union of People Affected by Texaco, welcomed the ruling, saying in a statement, “after 22 years we can perform actions to collect the judgment against Chevron and immediately start repairing our territories."

Chevron is fighting a multi-front battle against the Ecuadorian judgement. The company secured a favorable ruling under RICO statutes in a New York court last year after its lawyers convinced a federal judge that the Ecuador ruling was the result of a corrupt judicial process.

The company has also entered into an arbitration process at the Hague, where its lawyers are attempting to argue that the government of Ecuador absolved Texaco of all liability when it ceased its Ecuador operations and left the country 25 years ago, though Chevron’s main legal defense in that case recently hit a major snag when it was rejected by the arbitrators.

Chevron once issued a statement threatening the Ecuadorians with "a lifetime of appellate and collateral litigation" if they continued to pursue their lawsuit — a company official later vowed to "fight until hell freezes over . . . and then we'll fight it out on the ice" — and the company appears to be making good on that threat.

Still, the Canada ruling comes at a bad time for Chevron, which has lost as much as $100 billion in market value over the past year thanks to cratering oil prices and other factors. Among them is the fact that the company made $24.7 billion from operations over that same time period while laying out $41.7 billion in expenditures and dividend payments.

At some point, says Amazon Watch’s Paul Paz y Miño, Chevron investors have to start wondering if the billions spent by the company on its aggressive, scorched earth legal strategy have really been worth it — especially as Ecuadorians continue to get sick and die as a result of the pollution still littering the forest floor.

“What does that say about [CEO John Watson’s] leadership? If I were a shareholder I’d say you have to pay this back to the company. You can’t mismanage the funds of our shareholders any further,” Paz y Miño told DeSmog.

The Financial Post reports that Chevron has assets worth roughly $15 billion in Canada, more than enough to satisfy the Ecuadorian judgement.

The Canadian assets include a network of Chevron gas stations in B.C.; a 20 per cent-stake in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project in Alberta; a 26.9 per cent interest in the Hibernia Field and a 23.6 per cent interest in Hibernia South Expansion off the shore of Newfoundland and Labrador; a 26.6 per cent interest in the Hebron Field in Newfoundland; an interest in the Duvernay Shale Field; and an interest in the Kitimat LNG Project in B.C.

The Ecuadorian plaintiffs say they want to seize and sell the shares of Chevron Canada to satisfy the $9.5 billion judgment — which has actually risen to $10 billion with interest, according to Amazon Watch’s Paz y Miño, who says the Canadian courts will count that interest.

But even if the plaintiffs ultimately win the enforcement action in Canada, a judge will still have to sort through the so-called "corporate veil" and determine whether the seizure of assets owned by Chevron Canada, which is not directly owned by Chevron, can be used to satisfy the latter's debt. No less than seven companies stand between Chevron Canada and its US-based parent company, according to the Financial Post.

In the end, however, Paz y Miño says the lawsuit has never been about money.

“They’re sitting there twisting a knife into the people of Ecuador,” he told DeSmog. “This isn’t about saying, ‘These people were responsible for something that happened in the past, and they should be held accountable.’ It’s about stopping the poisoning of people that’s still going on. Chevron is continuing to poison people, and won’t clean up the pollution.”  

Image Credit: Jeff Whyte / Shutterstock.com

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Seismic airguns are being fired underwater off the east coast of Greenland to find new oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean. But this activity “could seriously injure” whales and other marine life, warns a new report conducted by Marine Conservation Research and commissioned by Greenpeace Nordic.

The oil industry is increasingly looking towards the region, as oil and gas reserves become more accessible as climate change causes large areas of Arctic sea ice to melt.

Global oil companies including BP, Chevron and Shell all own drilling rights in the Greenland Sea and are the likely customers for the data gathered by the Norwegian geophysical company conducting the seismic testing, TGS-Nopec.

Wildlife Impacts

However, this seismic operation is taking place adjacent to ‘closed areas’ and overlaps with ‘areas of concern’ that have been appointed by the Greenlandic authorities, for the protection of narwhals, walruses and a critically endangered population of bowhead whales.

According to Greenpeace, the airguns emit 259-decibel blasts towards the seabed in order to find possible oil reservoirs. Above water, this sound intensity would be perceived by humans as approximately eight times louder than a jet engine taking off.

As the report details, seismic testing can damage marine mammals’ hearing and their ability to communicate as well as disrupting behaviour, feeding and migration patterns. This is because these mammals, and whales in particular, rely on sound to navigate, communicate and search for food.

There are also increasing indications that seismic testing can cause reproductive failure and increase the risk of strandings and ice entrapments.

Seismic Activity

Seismic testing has been conducted every summer in Greenland since 2011. And in April, TGS announced it had also begun doing seismic testing of the Barents Sea. As DeSmog UK has reported, Norway is leading the charge in Europe for Arctic oil development as production at its first offshore oilfield is set to begin “in a few weeks”.

The report's author, Dr Oliver Boisseau, a senior research scientist at Marine Conservation Research, said: “It is alarming to consider the vast amount of seismic activity being planned and conducted in the High Arctic, given the fragile nature of the ecosystem and the potential for disturbance and harm to whales.

“It seems justified to urge for extreme caution given both the lack of data and the limited understanding of the short and long term impact of seismic noise on sensitive Arctic species, especially the narwhal.”

Photo: Glenn Williams via Wikimedia Commons

As Boisseau highlights, the narwhal is particularly vulnerable to seismic testing. While some whales react to seismic sounds tens of kilometres away by trying to avoid them, narwhals are unique in their tendency to "freeze and sink" in response to a threat.

The report explains: “This means narwhals are more susceptible to damage from airgun blasts as they are not inclined to avoid regions impacted by noise.”

Narwhals are also more susceptible to becoming trapped in the ice in response to blasts from seismic vessels. Between 2008 and 2010 three entrapments of narwhals were reported coinciding with seismic activities in Greenland during the summer period. The narwhals delayed their autumn migration from Baffin Bay, leading to them travelling while winter sea ice started forming, causing thousands of narwhals to become entrapped in the ice and die.

This was the first time narwhal entrapments had ever been reported in this area.

Research Gap

However, the Marine Conservation Research report stresses that there is a “massive research gap” in this field. To date, no strandings of Arctic whale species have been reported, “which could mean they have not occurred or that they have not been reported due to the remoteness and extremely thin population density,” the report explains.

“Based on available data, the authors ‘urge for extreme caution’ amongst decision makers before allowing seismic activity in the Arctic,” the report argues. “From the research at hand, it is clear that noise from seismic activity impacts whales.”

Arctic campaigner Sune Scheller, on-board Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise headed to Greenland, said: “Seismic blasting in icy waters is just one of the horrific practices the oil industry is doing in the Arctic, firing airguns into this important and beautiful ocean.

“Shell and other oil companies are hoping the world won’t know that seismic blasting exists, even less notice the danger it poses to endangered whales and other marine life, but we’re here to expose this madness and keep eyes and ears on a harmful operation.”

@kylamandel

Photo: Greenland Travel via Flickr

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This week’s episode of DeSmogCAST covers the fallout of the U.S. midterm elections and what a GOP-led Congress will mean for climate action and the Keystone XL pipeline.

Hosted by DeSmogBlog contributor Farron Cousins, our DeSmog cast – featuring Carol Linnitt, Brendan DeMelle and Steve Horn – also takes a look at fracking bans in several U.S. states, the hilarious success of the #KMFACE campaign, and the importance of community organizing in the face of growing fossil fuel influence in our lives. We discuss Chevron’s ‘Fuel Your Schools’ campaign currently taking place in schools around Vancouver’s lower mainland.

DeSmogCAST is a weekly newscast featuring DeSmog writers, experts and invited guests who discuss breaking stories and engage in analysis of politics, energy and environment issues in the U.S., Canada and around the world.

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From now until November 30, if parents and teachers want to support Lower Mainland schools, all they need to do is fuel up at Chevron gas stations within their district.

As part of a program called Fuel Your Schools, for every 30 litres of gas purchased, Chevron donates $1 to participating school districts. The program has been in effect in North Vancouver since May when the Board of Trustees decided to opt in. Chevron has ads up in its gas stations informing drivers of the program.

North Van was the fifth district in B.C. to join the program, joining West Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey and Coquitlam. If the fundraising goal is reached — a total of $565,000 to be split between the five districts — B.C. drivers will have purchased just under 17 million litres of gas.

In spite of the incentive to buy more gas and to buy it from Chevron — the company behind the proposed Pacific Trail pipeline that would carry one billion cubic feet of natural gas from Summit Lake to Kitimat — Victoria Miles, spokesperson for the North Vancouver School District (NVSD), told DeSmog that the district believes a relationship with Chevron “in no way impedes” its sustainability mandate.

“When it comes to energy use, we want to ensure that we are using less and creating greater efficiencies in all of our operations. Sustainability in all areas of our operations is a goal we are actively working to realize as part of our 10-year strategic lan," she said via e-mail.

The program is a collaboration between Chevron and My Class Needs, a non-profit organization that crowdsources money for schools to fund projects. The funding prioritizes STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) projects and teachers have the option of applying for funding for particular programs or projects. Teachers report back on how the funds are used.

Miles was also quick to point out that Chevron isn’t permitted to advertise in classrooms and supplies purchased through the program won’t be branded. However, presentations given to children in Surrey classrooms featured Chevron advertising materials.

A presentation given at Bear Creek Elementary School features Chevron Fuel Your Schools material. Source: Surrey604.com

“We recognize the funding source is an act of corporate social responsibility that the company does not have to engage in with a portion of their profits. The company offers their support to public education, as an option for teachers who might value supplementary funding for a resource that can enhance their educational practice and classroom engagement,” she said via e-mail. 

Students and school faculty in Orange County, California, pose with Chevron advertising materials. Source: Irvine News Blog.

Carolyn Pena, president of the North Vancouver Teachers Association (NVTA), is skeptical about the promise to keep branding out of school. After learning of the program, she saw a promotional video made by teachers in the Surrey district that featured Chevron Fuel Your School posters as well as the program's cartoon car logo.

“That's what we’ve seen of the program, so it just makes us wonder,” she said

Pena only found out about the program when teachers who were sent information about it contacted her to express their concerns.

“We weren’t consulted at all. Not only were we not consulted, we didn’t even know the decision was taking place in order to provied any feedback whatsoever."

"We didn’t know for months afterward,” she said.

While Chevron claims that parents were not told about the program and have in no way been pushed to buy gas from Chevron, Pena said it puts teachers in the difficult position of potentially having to explain the program to students while also teaching about environmental responsibility.

“Fundamentally, what we need is a level of public education funding that allows schools to function without the need for corporate donation. This undermines the call for adequate public funding.”

The Vancouver School District has refused to be part of the program on the grounds that Chevron’s partnership with My Class Needs, which has oversight over fundraising projects, amounts to corporate influence on curriculum. With municpal elections coming up on Nov. 15th, the issue is a contentious one both for the mayoral race and school board trustee elections.

The North Vancouver Teachers Association has passed a non-binding motion asking teachers not to participate in the program.

David Lavallee is one of the many teachers in the North Vancouver School District with serious concerns about the program. As a teacher on call, he could be requested to teach in a variety of schools, all of which might participate in the program differently.

When it comes to the messaging of oil companies like Chevron, Lavallee has done his homework. A documentary filmmaker when he’s not in the classroom, Lavallee is the creator of White Water Black Gold, a film about water use in the Alberta oilsands.

With a Master’s degree in psychology, Lavalee formerly researched child development and how children respond to advertising and corporate messaging. Logos or no logos, he believes Chevron has no business in public schools.

“Climate change is on the news all the time. I remember as kid myself listening to stuff on the news and trying to make sense of it and not having the tools to make sense of it.”

Lavallee says he has even seen adults struggle to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the oil and gas industry. And in spite of years of exposure to the tactics multinational corporations use to keep the oil flowing, he said he still sometimes runs into confusion himself.

“It’s too much for kids,” he said. “I believe the classroom should be a sacred space where kids don’t have to face advertising of any kind.”

Image Credit: A Chevron representative speaks to children in a California elementary school. Photo from Richmond Confidential, a University of Berkley journalism website.

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Chevron made waves in the business world when it announced its October 6 sale of 30-percent of its holdings in the Alberta-based Duvernay Shale basin to Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) for $1.5 billion.

It marked the first North American purchase for the Kuwaiti state-owned oil company and yields KUFPEC 330,000 acres of Duvernay shale gas. Company CEO and the country's Crown Prince, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, called it an "anchor project" that could spawn Kuwait's expansion into North America at-large. 

Kuwait's investment in the Duvernay, at face-value buying into Canada's hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") revolution, was actually also an all-in bet on Alberta's tar sands. As explained in an October 7 article in Platts, the Duvernay serves as a key feedstock for condensate, a petroleum product made from gas used to dilute tar sands, allowing the product to move through pipelines. 

And while Kuwait — the small Gulf state sandwiched between Iraq and Saudi Arabia — has made a wager on Alberta's shale and tar sands, Big Oil may also soon make a big bet on Kuwait's homegrown tar sands resources.

"Kuwait has invited Britain’s BP, France’s Total, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron, to bid for a so-called enhanced technical service agreement for the northern Ratqa heavy oilfield," explained an October 2 article in Reuters. "It is the first time KOC will develop such a big heavy oil reservoir and the plan is to produce 60,000 bpd from Ratqa, which lies close to the Iraqi border [in northern Kuwait]…and then ramp it up to 120,000 bpd by 2025."

In the past, Kuwait has said it hopes to learn how to extract tar sands from Alberta's petroleum engineers.

Canadian Tutelage

Back in 2007, Kuwait had much more ambitious plans for the Ratqa oil field.

Though the current goal is to suck 120,000 barrels per day of heavy oil out of the field, back in 2007 the goal was 900,000 barrels per day by 2020. And Alberta's petroleum engineers would lend their expertise to the cause, or at least that was the plan for Kuwait Oil Company at the time. 

"Unless we seek the experience of the industry here, we will not be able to reach our target," Ali al-Shammari, at the time the deputy managing director for finance for the Kuwait Oil Company, told the Calgary Herald. "We will need [international oil companies'] help in developing the reservoirs and may also consider the options of signing enhanced technical services agreements."

Kuwait's entrance into Canada depicts how important Alberta's tar sands have become for the global geopolitical landscape. And Kuwait opening its doors to the oil majors depicts the country as an emerging player in the global oil market.

Geopolitics At Play 

The Islamic State — formerly known as the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL)— has established what it calls a Caliphate in both northern Iraq and large swaths of Syria.

Fueled by $25 to $60 per barrel oil sold on the black market, Kuwait has largely escaped from the day-to-day newscycle. But as the famous Mark Twain quip goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

The Ratqa oil field is the same geological formation as the Rumaila oil field, which sits in southern Iraq. Iraq and Kuwait fought a war over the field in early-1990s, in which the United States led the call to arms against former President Saddam Hussein: Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War. 

In 2010, Iraq and Kuwait signed an agreement — an armistice really — to share the border oilfield. 

Further, Wikileaks U.S. Department of State diplomatic cables made public by whistleblower Chelsea Manning show that the U.S. government has kept a close eye on the Ratqa oil field, as well as on which U.S.-based oil companies stood to win and lose if developed. 

Though almost two and a half decades have gone by since Operation Desert Storm and Saddam Hussein is no longer even alive, one thing remains constant: oil still runs the show in the Persian Gulf region. And this time around, it's tar sands oil — the same oil running the show in Alberta.

Photo Credit: esfera | ShutterStock

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B.C.'s Christy Clark government is proposing to overhaul the Societies Act, and they've distributed a snoozer of a White Paper to let you know all about it.

If you've dozed off already, WAKE UP, because there's a massive zinger quietly planted deep inside. You can do something about it — more on that at the end of this post. But unmentioned in any preamble or executive summary, Section 99 allows any person (including corporations) to take any registered society to court that they believe is acting contrary to the public interest — whatever that is.

Here it is:

Complaints by public

99 (1) A person whom the court considers to be an appropriate person to make an application under this section may apply to the court for an order under this section on the grounds that a society

(b) is carrying on activities that are detrimental to the public interest.

In other words, environmental non-profit groups better watch their step because they're in the cross-hairs. Premier Clark is handing the legal hammer to Enbridge, Kinder Morgan, ExxonMobil, Koch, Encana, Chevron, Sinopec, Suncor and the entire B.C. LNG sector to tie non-profits up in court for years.

Section 99 looks like Clark's close advisor Gwyn Morgan drafted it up during half-time at last year's Grey Cup. Not a single competent lawyer within the Ministry of Justice could say with a straight face that it's constitutional. The clear intent is to silence and intimidate Canadian conservation and environmental non-profits with the threat of litigation. And if mere threat doesn't work, this legislation enables the corporate sector to bludgeon them into lawsuit bankruptcy.

This proposal is one of the most ill-conceived and draconian initiatives to see the light of day in a modern democracy, and reveals the extent of Clark's captivity by the oil and gas lobby. (And one more reason B.C. political leaders should be prevented from funding their election campaigns at the Petroleum Club in Calgary).

But as policy, it's also breathtakingly stupid. As if B.C. doesn't already have the mother of all court backlogs to cope with, the Clark government now proposes to fill up the system with disgruntled parents taking out their beefs in court against a minor hockey association or local elementary school parent advisory council. It will be open season on abortion clinics, LGBTQ organizations and mosques. Don't think for a minute that won't happen.

The real backdrop, of course, is that the Harper government has been on a tear against environmentalists for years, muzzling our scientists and attempting to discredit Canadian environmental NGOs.

The government has spent millions in fruitless CRA revenge audits hunting for a wholly imaginary conspiracy involving Canadian environmental organizations and U.S. scientific and charitable foundations. This vendetta has cost both the charitable sector and public purse untold funds in accounting and legal fees, over nothing.

Agree or disagree with the environmental movement, its members are entitled, as are all of us, to contribute vigorously to public debate over resource development. No one in a free and democratic society should be silenced or censored by fear of government-sanctioned reprisal. But that is precisely the purpose of this legislation.

Christy Clark would do well to remember that Canada is a free nation — our constitution says so. British Columbians, including non-profits, are free to do what we want, express ourselves freely and associate with whomever we choose to, unless it's for an unlawful purpose.

If government wants to limit that freedom it must abide by the Charter of Rights, not force citizens to meet a vague test like "public interest," which doesn't mean the same thing to any two people in the province. That would be the same Charter of Rights that Justice Susan Griffin pounded the B.C. government with during the teachers' dispute.

This White Paper is open to comments by the public until the end of day Wednesday Oct. 15. E-mail yours to the Financial and Corporate Sector Policy Branch here: fcsp@gov.bc.ca

Photo: Chris Yakimov.

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In spite of the ink that has been devoted to arguing about how many jobs Enbridge Northern Gateway is promising to Kitimat residents, one of the most compelling bits of evidence may be an update to a community planning document produced by the District of Kitimat in 2008. 

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