Saturday, February 18, 2012

Time for Oil Sands again

I had earlier blogged about the Tar sands controversy here. The issue comes to the fore again due to a proposed vote on a draft law by EU officials in February, 2012 regarding labelling oil from tar sands as more carbon intensive. 


A scarecrow lies in a tailings pond in front of the Suncor oil sands extraction facility near the town of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The European Union is expected to vote on a law that would designate oil sands crude as more polluting than other forms of oil.
(A scarecrow lies in a tailings pond in front of the Suncor oil sands extraction facility near the town of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The European Union is expected to vote on a law that would designate oil sands crude as more polluting than other forms of oil.Photograph by: Mark Ralston, AFP/Getty Images)

It was reported briefly here.
European Union officials are expected to vote on Feb. 23 on a draft law that would label fuel produced from oilsands as more polluting than that from other forms of oil, according to a draft agenda seen by Reuters.
The proposal from the EU's executive to include oilsands in a ranking designed to enable fuel suppliers to identify the most carbon-intensive options has stirred up intense lobbying by Canada.
Home to the world's third-largest oil reserves, almost all of which are in the form of oilsands, Canada has argued the EU is unfairly discriminating against it.

Previous EU meetings have repeatedly failed to get as far as a vote, but the agenda for a fifth meeting of the fuel quality committee later this month schedules a vote on an amendment to the Fuel Quality Directive proposed by the European Commission."
 This dispute looks like a long winding one before it reaches the doorsteps of the WTO, if at all.


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