Friday March 8th, 2013

Oxford, UK- Canadian High Commissioner to the UK, Gordon Campbell, was greeted with protests at Oxford University on Friday. Local community members held a banner which read “Keep Tar Sands out of Europe” at the entrance to Lady Margaret Hall as Campbell arrived to deliver a seminar at the college. “Canada is promoting tar sands oil as a clean and ethical energy source, when we know that the exact opposite is the case,” said Suzanne Dhaliwal, from the UK Tar Sands Network. “Entire ecosystems are being destroyed and communities are being devastated in order to extract this highly polluting source of oil.”

Campbell, the former premier of British Columbia, has been on a persistent campaign to promote Canadian tar sands in Europe as a source of ‘ethical and green oil’ since 2011. The aggressive lobbying has backfired with Gordon Campbell having noted that “Brand Canada” has been internationally damaged by attempts to sell tar sands oil at all costs.

The protest was organized by Tar-Free Oxford a group of concerned citizens, local businesspeople, students and climate campaigners. The group are concerned about Canada’s relentless lobbying against a key piece of EU climate policy, the Fuel Quality Directive, which aims to reduce imports of highly polluting fuels such as tar sands and synthetic oil from coal into Europe. Despite the group’s protest being peaceful, there was an excessive police presence throughout with some members being warned of possible arrest before the talk had even begun.

The High Commissioner was put on the defensive by a series of questions from both British and Canadian students invoking Canada’s refusal to acknowledge opposition on tar sands. “Brand Canada” took another bash when one speaker admitted to being “embarrassed” by Canada’s persistent undermining of both domestic and international climate legislation. Campbell was clearly uncomfortable when pushed on the Idle No More uprisings and reacted aggressively to challenges from another member of the audience regarding the need to radically change overall energy use patterns.

“Canada is no longer the progressive, green nation we thought it was, despite Campbell’s claims. It is becoming an aggressive petro-state,” said Oxford student Chris Peterson. “Despite Campbell’s involvement in EU lobbying, he implied that the Fuel Quality Directive doesn’t impact the economic viability of the tar sands. I asked him why he had been lobbying so hard if that was the case but that question remained unanswered as he was led away to dinner.”

Although current imports of tar sands oil into the UK are minimal, European markets are key to expanding Canada’s tar sands operations. The UK government has been a close ally of the Canadian government, defending the interests of BP and Shell, who have significant investments in the Canadian tar sands.

The Canadian government has failed to adequately address the concerns of First Nations communities impacted by tar sands operations. As a result they have had to bring their concerns to an international audience. First Nations leader, Bill Erasmus was in Berlin on Thursday raising awareness about the impacts of tar sands in Northern Canada and supported the European Commission’s effort to label fuels from tar sands deposits as highly polluting under the FQD.

“I stand in solidarity with the communities who are being impacted by the development of tar sands” said Oxford resident and college alumnus Ruthi Brandt. “I am outraged at the aggressive lobbying Canada and its representatives are engaged in, which is hindering European attempts to do the right thing and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government should act for the future of its citizens, not for the benefit of the Canadian government and the oil industry.”

**Please note – this event has been rescheduled, and will now be held on January 22nd, 2013**

Tar Free Oxford is delighted to host Platform for an interactive workshop exploring how the drive to control oil reserves – and hence people and events – has shattered environments and shaped societies, and how we can change direction.

When : Tuesday, January 22, 7:15pm

Where : Oxford Hub,The Turl Street Kitchen (16-17 Turl Street, OX1 3DH Oxford). In the Events Space on the first floor

What : Europe imports more oil & gas than the US, China and India combined – driving war, pollution and poverty. This massive daily intake of fossil fuels relies on a web of pipelines, tanker routes and gas terminals – as well as military force, strong-arm diplomacy and corporate capitalism. From BP executives to Somali pirates, bureaucrats in Brussels to revolutionaries in Egypt, these structures are constantly defended and contested. We’ll explore BP’s pipeline from the Caspian, militarised gas grids and oil company lobbying for new warships in the midst of the cuts. In an interactive and participatory workshop we will search for pathways towards dismantling our current energy reality and replacing it with alternative energy futures.

The Facebook event page can be found here. Feel free to join and to invite your friends!

When : Sunday, August 5th, 4pm – 8pm

Where : Friends Meeting House (Garden Room),43 St Giles, OX1 3LW

What: Learn more about the Canadian Tar Sands, and take part in shaping Tar Free Oxford!

Do you live in Oxfordshire? Do you really want to do something about those damned tar sands, but not sure what you can do all the way from over here? Well now is your chance to get involved!

We are starting a group of local people who want to take action on a local level and show the solidarity with front line communities. The launch will start with a  screening of the excellent, one-hour long, Taking on Tarmageddon followed by a short general intro to Tar Sands.  We will then break into small groups (Open Space style) to brainstorm and discuss what we want to do as Tar Free Oxford. Don’t worry if you don’t know what Open Space is, all will be explained… If you’ve already seen the film, you are welcome to join us at 5pm. Of course, you are also very welcome to see it again!

In the meantime, you can join the new Tar Free Oxford Facebook group and/or the Facebook event for the launch.

What is Tar Free Oxford?

That’s up to you! Because all groups have different skills, priorities and opportunities, there is no absolute blueprint for being a Tar-Free Town. Which is why there will be an open meeting on August 5th to discuss whether Oxford should be declared a Tar-Free Town, and what it will mean.

We need as many people on board as possible, so please sign up for our newsletter, or just drop us a line at info@no-tar-sands.org, so we can let you know exactly when and where this meeting will be!

Tar Monster caught by climate campaigners on the Streets of Oxford

Oxford Joins Global Demonstration to “Connect the Dots” Between Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Today, May 5^th 2012 a Tar Monster was on the loose in Cornmarket Street as part of an international day of action on climate change. The tar monster was caught by a dozen campaigners who called to stop the extraction of Canadian Tar Sands and connected the dots between extreme energy projects and extreme weather events.

“Tar sands fuel releases three to five more greenhouse emissions that conventional oil and is driving the planet to irreversible climate change.” said Pete Barker, one of the organisers of the Oxford event said, “Rather than making the transition to renewable forms of energy we are seeing more and more extreme energy in the mix like tar sands, which is creating extreme weather and is already impacting on communities globally.”

The creative demonstration was a combination of “Climate Impacts Day,” an effort led by international climate campaign350.org which has brought together over 1,000 events in 150 countries [1], and International Stop the Tar Sands Day, a grassroots initiative raising awareness about the dangers of tar sands exploitation [2]. It was organised by local 350.org and tar sands activists in collaboration with Lush store in Oxford, and was supported by the UK Tar Sands Network [3], who is calling on Oxford to become one of the first Tar Free Towns in the UK [4].

“People have got to realise that climate change is happening right now, and if we don’t rapidly transition from away from extreme forms of energy extraction like mining tar sands or drilling in the Arctic, soon it will be too late to avoid runaway climate change” said tar sands and climate campaigner Ruthi Brandt 

NOTES:

[1] Climate Impacts Day is hosted by 350.org, an international grassroots climate campaign. Today, over 1,000 events in 150 countries “connect the dots” between local changes, like extreme weather events, and the broader climate crisis. Visit www.climatedots.org for more information about Climate Impacts Day.

 [2] International Stop the Tar Sands Day is highlighting how industry is going to more and more extreme lengths to get fuel for the world’s fossil fuel addiction by drilling deeper and deeper for more and more difficult to extract oil and gas resources. Growing from 9 events in 2010 to fifty in 2011, today was the 3^rd ISTSDay, organised by a group of everyday citizens from around the world.

 [3] The UK Tar Sands Network campaigns in partnership with Indigenous communities affected by the Tar Sands oil developments in Canada. They target the UK and EU governments, UK companies (such as BP and Shell), and banks and investors (such as RBS) operating in the Alberta Tar Sands. It is based in Oxford.

 [4] A Tar-Free Town is a community that is working towards a vision of clean energy, and is setting out to actively make the positive transition away from dirty oil. The idea came from a desire to connect people in the UK with communities fighting Tar Sands in Canada. Similar initiatives in the US were successful in blocking tar sands oil entirely from individual municipalities. Although Tar Sands oil hasn’t yet arrived in the UK in significant quantities, its large-scale import is potentially very close and the battle to shut Tar Sands out of the UK market is taking place right now.

[5] More about the tar sands in Alberta, Canada –

 It is the biggest energy project in the world and extracting oil from the sand is an incredibly damaging process, both to the natural environment and the people that live there. Tar sands have such high carbon intensity that if extraction continues, all attempts to hold global temperature below 2 degrees to avoid the most severe climate change impacts will be inevitable. Although at this stage very few tons of tar sands get shipped over to Europe the issue cannot be ignored as the EU has to decide if they will allow for more and more dirty tar sands to be shipped to Europe. EU countries recently voted on the Fuel Quality Directive, which would classify tar sands to be more environmentally damaging than conventional fuels. If passed this policy would have kept tar sands oil out of Europe. But, the vote resulted in a stalemate. The decision is now delayed until 2013 as the European Commission will conduct an impact assessment for the proposal, asked by European oil corporations, which are heavily lobbying EU member states along with Canada.