Dirty oil dipolomacy : Sale diplomatie pétrolière: la campagne mondiale de promotion des sables bitumineux du gouvernement du Canada

The Canadian tar sands, found predominately in the province of Alberta, are the most developed tar sands deposit in the world and the third largest petroleum deposit globally after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela6. [...] Most of the water for mining tar sands comes from the Athabasca River, and because of the high toxin levels in wastewater, next to none of it can be returned to the river19,20. [...] Tar Sands 101 The amount of water that is currently used in tar sands production has the potential to seriously threaten the ecosystem of the river, which not only flows into one of the world’s largest freshwater deltas, but is also a central part of the lives and livelihoods of First Nations people living downstream from the tar sands23,24. [...] The Canadian government’s refusal to confirm or deny the rumours while continuing to negotiate the future of the Kyoto Protocol in Durban led many countries to question publically the Canadian government’s intentions and good faith in the negotiations48. [...] This has been an issue featured much in the press, and I know there have been allegations from the press that the emissions from that sector have not been included in Canada’s inventory (report submission to the UN).” - Peter Betts, the lead European Union negotiator and a director at the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change in response to the Canadian Government’s presentation