Scientists Call for Halt to Canada's Oil Sands Growth

Expansion of oil production from tar sands is incompatible with halting climate change

By Bobby Magill and Climate Central | June 10, 2015

A heavy hauler at the Shell Albian sands site.

*Pembina Institute/Flickr*

More on this Topic

The controversial proposed Keystone XL Pipeline put Canada’s vast carbon-laden tar sands on the map for many Americans, with its builders promising that it would carry 800,000 barrels of petroleum per day from Alberta’s tar sands to oil refineries in Texas.

But a group of 100 scientists on Wednesday called for a moratorium on further oil sands development, saying it isn’t compatible with stabilizing the climate and meeting greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets.

“We shouldn’t be doubling down or quadrupling down on the tar sands going from 2 million barrels per day to four, six, eight as industry is calling for by proposing expansions and proposing pipelines,” Simon Fraser University energy economist Mark Jaccard said.

Many scientists, environmental groups and President Obama have voiced concern about the effect of tar sands, or oil sands, on the climate. The U.S. State Department concluded that oil sands are more than 17 percent more carbon-intensive to extract than the average barrel of oil.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers announced Tuesday that oil sands will account for most of a 43 percent increase in Canadian crude oil production through 2030. Production is expected to grow from 3.7 million barrels per day to 5.3 million barrels. Of those, 4 million barrels will come from oil sands.

In addition to Jaccard, the group of scientists includes Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann, former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, Princeton University evolutionary biologists Simon Levin and David Wilcove, Harvard University physicist David Keith, and University of Waterloo international affairs professor Thomas Homer-Dixon.

They cited 10 reasons Canada should place a moratorium on additional tar sands development. Those include tar sands’ significant environmental impact, the possibility that controlling carbon emissions with taxes or reductions in fossil fuel use will not hurt the economy, and, among other things, much of the land mined for tar sands previously has not yet been reclaimed and restored to a more natural state.

Other scientists have warned that if the tar sands continue to be developed and the Keystone XL is constructed, it would make the international goal of keeping global warming under 2°C (3.6°F) extraordinarily difficult.