Several news reported this month that Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its written agreements to significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution at its Alberta oil sands project sites.Shell's suits-in-charge made numerous commitments for environmental assessments and carbon-reducing measures to the Oil Sands Environmental Coalition (OSEC) late in 2003. these "commitments" in large part helped inform the decision by the governments of Alberta and Canada to grant regulatory approval for Shell projects in 2004 and 2006.
Marlo Raynolds, Executive Director of the Pembina Institute had this to say: “Shell’s decision to break these binding agreements calls into question its claims of environmental leadership. Shell seems to believe it can break promises to Canadians with impunity.”
Meanwhile, Shell’s carbon pollution is expected from its Alberta projects will increase by an estimated 900,000 tonnes within two years - which is equivalent to adding 200,000 cars to the road in Canada.
“Shell’s betrayal of both stakeholders and the governments that approved these projects will undoubtedly reinforce the growing mistrust that Canadians have of the oil sands industry, especially on environmental matters”, said Simon Dyer, Oil Sands Program Director at the Pembina Institute.
In approving Shell’s projects, the Joint Review Panel struck by the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) and the Government of Canada explicitly noted that they would review Shell’s approval in the event that the company failed to fulfill commitments that had been presented as evidence. This month the Pembina Institute and Ecojustice filed an affidavit with the ERCB and the Government of Canada requesting that the approval of these projects be reconsidered through a new public hearing.
The Pembina Institute announced on April 8, 2009, that it has asked government to reconsider the approvals of two Shell oil sands projects:
It is doubtful that the conservative party officials in both these governments will do much to enforce Shell's commitment to environmental ethics, eager as they have been to cite "economic downturn" as a motive to ignore ecological abuses by corporate interests. We'll have to wait until the Liberal party takes power next election to see if government has any ability to preserve Canadian ecosystems.
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