The new global reality, since the UN in Copenhagen not to reach a workable agreement to reduce pollution and to reduce the global population, is that powerful transnational non-state actors roaming the world in the environmental area, to replace of smaller and local activists. They are run by anonymous people, it limits, it must planetary mandates of fossil fuels and energy development and attack were armed with money, political influence and Media Intelligence. They hunt in countries where there is an open and transparent system of environmental management, even though they themselves are often not transparent in terms of their constituencies, funding sources and agendas.
They swarm around causes and elected one of their biggest targets, Canada’s oil sands. This makes no sense, because the emissions from the oil sands are a fraction of the combustion of coal and equivalent to California heavy crude oil or ethanol. None of these is getting the same attention as the oil sands and pipeline.
But here’s an example of transnational environmentalism.
A few months ago, the mission of the over-sized equipment from South Korea for use in the oil sands stopped at the border. The equipment was imported by U.S. oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips from the United States, which is when the problem occurred.
The cheapest way to landlocked Alberta freight barge equipment to the Columbia River to get as close as possible to the U.S. and Canada border in Lewiston, Idaho. The equipment had to be loaded onto trucks and driven at night, through Idaho and Montana border to their oil sands projects.
The two companies were asked to set up, and spent $ 25 million for road safety “bills” or places where these wide loads to pull aside to make room for other traffic to give.
“Somehow, some entities had mobilized on the extra-sized equipment and had to organize the shipment on the basis of road safety to stop,” Matt Morrison, director of Pacific Northwest Economic Area, said in an interview on the Global Business Forum held in Banff each year and sponsored by the oil industry and Alberta government.
The issue became politicized in Idaho and Montana. Letters and other communications oppose the transportation department Roads flooded in Montana, Morrison said.
“We were shocked that only 37 percent of people who wrote complaining [about the equipment to the oil sands] lived in the state and the rest were from places like Nigeria, Venezuela. Most were international,” he said. “The equipment was stopped for some time and some are still being kept pending permits.”
That was not surprising.
Nigeria and Venezuela, like Saudi Arabia, suppliers of oil to the United States. Involved in opposition to the oil sands is just a dirty trick against a competitor. But it is also more. The oil sands could supply the world with much more oil, thus keeping prices lower than otherwise.
Whether their oil dependent regimes are directly involved is difficult to say. That these regimes are probably involved, but have hidden their tracks, is a given.
The Saudi Arabians, kingpins in OPEC are hyper-alert for decades about the oil sands, whose reserves are the same size as the Kingdom of the current price levels. This reality, long known to those of us who cover the energy scene, busted out of the public in Canada recently when the Saudi government began to strong-arm tactics to television commercials to stop by a pro-oil sands NGO, or non- governmental organization called EthicalOil.org.
Claudia Cattaneo, because the Post wrote this week, the ads encouraged consumers ‘ethical’ oil from Canada over ‘conflict’ oil comes from undemocratic regimes, where most of the world oil reserves are located. The message zeroed in on the abuse of women in Saudi Arabia through the inclusion of controversial images.
The Saudis hired lawyers to the Television Bureau of Canada, the advertising review and approval services funded by Canada’s private broadcasters, say the approval of the ads to attract. The base group was furious and went to the ads on CTV until the network back under pressure from the Saudis.
“If the ad in question is the subject of a legal dispute between ethical Oil and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on the advice of our legal department we will not accept the order until the case is resolved,” a statement CTV.
The Saudi government has also the Canadian oil industry approached to express his concerns about the ethical oil campaign, in case a role in the industry sources confirmed. Takes one to know one. But they were wrong and were told so.
Jason Kenney, Canadian Immigration Minister, became angry and told a newspaper. “Canada is a country that is a champion of freedom of speech is a constitutional right that we do not take kindly to foreign governments directly or indirectly threatening Canadian broadcasters. Or media to give voice to the freedom of speech.”
That message, political intervention in order to block oil from Canada to the U.S., should also be understood in Washington. Both countries can not let unsavory regimes hijack what is happening in both countries’ best interests.
This entry was originally published in the Financial Times.
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