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The question of what role oil/tar sands should play in the global energy mix will not be decided in Europe by a gentle discussion of the pros and cons but by a titanic struggle for public opinion that is likely to illuminate the contours of environment and energy politics for a generation. The issue of what one side calls oil sands, and the other calls tar sands, may well be the one that shows to a wider public audience how climate change is changing the politics of Europe.
For the environment movement globally, and in Europe particularly, this is the issue that cannot be lost. For the energy industry whose core products are derived from fossils, it is the issue that has to be won. The environment movement’s case can be simply put; if you accept the evidence that man-made climate change is happening, then proceeding to further fossil fuel exploitation in ever more remote areas, at ever higher costs in the emissions of climate change causing gases, demonstrates that you do not think that the issue can be meaningfully addressed in our generation. For the industry, the case is equally simple, Europe’s oil and gas companies have to be globally competitive in the hunt for the natural resource that is their core product. A decision by the European Union to handicap fuel from tar/oil sands would inevitably impact on the ability of those companies to operate in countries such as Canada and, sooner or later, others where equally controversial resources are to be found. For the Western world’s energy industry, if the political debate leads to them being unable to participate in the exploitation of these resources, they will be faced with a rapidly growing perception that they are “sunset industries”. The implications for both of these important components of Western society, the environment movement and the fossil fuel energy industry, are huge – and they both know it.
The issue has come to a head in the European Union’s Fuel Quality Directive. The politicians of most member states in Europe rarely miss an opportunity to emote in public about how concerned they are about climate change. It was always the case that sooner or later an issue would emerge where a practical decision would show if politicians are prepared to accept a political and economic cost in a commitment to action on climate change. What the issue would be, and when it would emerge, was always far less predictable. Neither side in this epic struggle were able to select the battlefield.
The battle will not be resolved by rational argument, the political decision will be the outcome of highly emotional public campaigns. Behind-the-scenes much “power play” in every sense of that phrase. Several of the largest environmental organisations globally, and their representatives here in Europe, are coming under increasing pressure from their supporters who are beginning to wonder what they are getting for their donations. Senior figures are to be found writing newspaper articles questioning whether the large organisations have become as bureaucratic and as “establishment” as the corporations they set out to hold to account. To lose on this issue, which is from an environmental activists perspective clear-cut, is likely to hugely exacerbate that debate and to encourage those who are pushing for a much more radical stance.
What is the politician to do? To alienate the environment movement and render themselves vulnerable to continuous charges of hypocrisy and worse, or to risk the wrath of an electorate all too ready to blame the politician for rapidly rising energy costs, whether petrol, electricity or gas. What we are now going to witness is a power struggle between the industry and the environment movement to demonstrate which is able to mount a more emotionally powerful campaign for public support. As an example of “competitive communications” it would be difficult to beat.
For those who wish a ringside seat for the first round, the place to be is the United Kingdom. Both BP and Shell are hugely influential corporations there; an influential Parliamentary committee has recently come out in favour of shale gas, a cousin of tar/oil sands and equally detested by the environment movement. The British government is under heavy pressure from Canada to do all it can to prevent the Fuel Quality Directive from discriminating against tar/oil sands. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has declared his intention to make his government the greenest ever. A significant proportion of his Parliamentary party in both Westminster and the European Parliament, privately believe that this commitment is madness. Their public spokesman is Margaret Thatcher’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) Nigel Lawson.
Within the government, the energy and climate cabinet minister is caught between a rock and a hard place, constantly under pressure from environmentalists to rule out various forms of energy supply, most notably nuclear power, whilst passionately desiring not to be the man in charge “when the lights go out”. The cabinet minister responsible for industry and business, is the former chief economist of Shell. The transport minister, whose department is meant to be largely responsible for the British position on this directive, is Norman Baker with a long record of “green commitment”. All three are members of the junior partner coalition party, the Liberal Democrats, they are vulnerable to losing votes to the greens and their party conference knows it.
In recent comments on the issue, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, referred to “tar sands”. As ever with such exquisitely contentious political issues, it is by the words you choose to use that you send messages to your supporters.
This issue will not turn upon the technical arguments concerning the extraction of fossil fuels, it is already clear that it is to become the defining issue for where politicians stand on the much broader issue of climate change. Expect screams of anguish from those who suddenly discover they can no longer sit on the fence.
Insightful as always, Simon.
You could add that the visuals significanfly strengthen the hand of the environmental activists on this issue. Oil sands is not the oil industry as we know it: nodding donkeys, wellheads and offshore platforms. This is one of the world’s biggest and least attractive mining operations, running 24 hours a day with monster machinery and massive trucks gouging bitumen from the ground to be heated, washed, treated, and refined. And that’s after removal of the Boreal forest and the soil ‘overburden’. It ain’t pretty, and – together with tailings and wastewater lakes – the images will have a powerful impact in the campaign. Let’s also not forget the views of First Nations people either, who have gained great wealth from the oil sands business but have surrendered much of their tribal land and spiritual enjoyment of their riverways.
I was watching a video on Tuesday of US ecologist Bill McKibben (350.org) addressing a training session for some of the activists who have gathered in Washington for a prolonged demonstration outside the White House calling for President Obama to block the Keystone II which would bring oil from Alberta into the mid-US. Many of these peaceful demonstrators, inlcluding a great number who have never broken a law, intend to be arrested as part of a long summer of civil disobedience. McKibben invoked the memory of Dr Martin Luther King and described this protest as the defining civil rights moment of this generation.
So yes, passions will run hot on this because – as you say, neither side can afford to lose.
BTW, closing down access to the EU and US markets for fuel derived from oil sands won’t be the end of the world for the industry. The pipelines will just go west, to the Pacific, and contribute to energy security for China and other resource-hungry Asian economies for decades to come. After all, the recoverable reserves of oil sands are roughly equal in volume to Saudi Arabia’s vast reserves.
Bill