Lobby Oil Sands website after parliament clears the curbs

The Pathways Alliance, whose six members account for about 95% of Canada’s oil sands production, has removed all messages from its website and social media, citing uncertainty about a new anti-eco-crime rule set to become federal law.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), long known as the country’s “top oil and gas lobby,” has also restricted its website, The Canadian Press reported.

Pathways members have publicly committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions from oil sands production by 2050. The consortium has previously spent millions of dollars on a nationwide public relations campaign maintaining that the oil sands is committed to fighting climate change.

However, in recent years, independent analysts have pointed to a growing gap between corporate promises and the lack of actual emissions reductions in a sector that continues to add to climate pollution. Pathways’ climate goals appear to be based on the continued demand for multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which has been in development for decades and whose proponents admit it won’t be ready for implementation as intended until 2035 at the earliest. .

Just tell the truth

Omnibus Bill C-59, which passed its third reading in the Senate on Wednesday and will soon become law, includes an advertising amendment that requires corporations in all industries to provide evidence to support their environmental claims, writes CP.

“This is actually a very modest provision in the act Competition Act. “It simply requires companies to tell the truth and have an evidence base to back up their claims,” said Leah Temper, program director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE), one of several groups pushing hard to challenge the eco-economy of the fossil fuel industry. fossil.

“So I think this reaction is very telling.”

The bill’s wording says companies are prohibited from making claims to the public about what they are doing to protect the environment or mitigate the effects of climate change unless those claims are based on “adequate and appropriate justification consistent with an internationally recognized methodology.”

This provision does not only apply to fossil fuels, but applies to all businesses and economic sectors.

“One of the things that’s really important is that in our democracy, people base their positions and decisions on facts,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Sackville, Nova Scotia, on Thursday after being asked about Pathways’ decision to remove content from website its website.

“Freedom of expression and the freedom of people to share their points of view are extremely important… (But) it is really important that organizations that present facts make every effort to ensure that they are truthful and grounded in reality.”

All promises, no delivery

The industry’s response suggests that the standard of common sense was too steep for Pathways and CAPP to climb.

“For some time, our research and analysis has identified significant gaps between the emissions reduction promises first made by the Pathways Alliance in 2021 and the actions being taken to deliver on those promises,” MC Bouchard, director of the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, wrote in message. “This does not change the fact that the group has not yet made final investment decisions on carbon capture projects or other technologies that would significantly reduce emissions in line with pre-defined targets for 2030 and 2050 – despite the existence of significant public subsidies to support such investments.”

That makes the oil sands “the highest emitting industry in Canada, and those emissions continue to increase,” Bouchard said. “Today’s events provide an opportunity to shift the discussion away from the industry’s intentions and promises and instead move to a reasoned conversation about the need for regulations to ensure the industry decarbonizes.”

As CP writes, as of Thursday, after extensive PR activities and Pathways announcements, all that remained was information on the website that the alliance had removed its content due to concerns about the anti-greenwashing provision in C-59.

“The upcoming changes to Sec Competition Act will create significant uncertainty for Canadian companies that want to publicly report on the work they are doing to improve their environmental performance,” the statement said.

“With uncertainty surrounding the interpretation and application of the new law, any clarity the Competition Bureau can provide through detailed guidance could help guide our approach to communications in the future.”

The scrubbed site doesn’t even list media or other contacts, and CP says Pathways didn’t respond to an interview request.

CAPP said Thursday that it has “also decided to reduce the amount of information available on its website and other digital platforms.”

A great victory for climate groups

Climate groups scored a resounding victory on Thursday and credited several different organizations – including CAPE, Ecojustice, Équiterre and the Quebec Environmental Law Center – for achieving this goal.

Last year, Canadian environmental groups filed at least four formal complaints with the federal Competition Bureau alleging “green spoofing,” or false environmental claims, by fossil fuel companies or banks, CP says.

The target of one of these complaints was the Pathways Alliance. Environmental groups said the consortium’s advertising and public claims about net-zero emissions are misleading because the alliance has not yet made a final investment decision on the proposed C$16.5 billion carbon capture and storage network.

But while the groups were pleased with Thursday’s developments, and CAPE’s Temper said she was “excited and surprised” by Pathways’ strong response, they say there is still more work to be done.

“We hope that changes in the law regarding greenwashing Competition Act contained in Bill C-59 are the beginning, not the end, of the government’s action on this issue,” Ecojustice lawyer Tanya Jemec said in a statement. “While the passage of Bill C-59 is a significant step toward ending rampant greenwashing in Canada, loopholes remain that will make it more difficult to hold companies accountable.”

“Canada desperately needed this legal reform because some of its most powerful industries prefer to pretend rather than take action towards carbon neutrality,” added Marc-André Viau, Équiterre’s director of government affairs. “Companies that are actually making significant and meaningful progress in the areas of environmental and climate protection will welcome this leveling of the playing field.”

Burden of proof

In its own statement, CAPP said the anti-eco-economy provision would silence the energy industry and limit Canadians’ ability to participate in climate and environmental policy debates, CP reports.

“The burden of proof provisions in the amendments mean that complainants bear no risk or liability. Rather, the burden falls entirely on companies,” said CAPP President and CEO Lisa Baiton.

“Companies across Canada face significant risks in communicating their efforts to reduce their environmental impact.”

Last week in the Calgary Herald, columnist Don Braid similarly blamed Bill C-59 for the Alberta government’s decision to close Canada’s much-derided energy “war room” and hand over its operations to the province’s ministry of intergovernmental affairs.

But Temper told CP that as the impact of climate change accelerates, it’s becoming more common for companies in all industries to make questionable environmental claims in their advertising.

“It was the Wild West. “Companies could make almost any claim they wanted, using terms like net carbon neutrality, without any credible evidentiary basis,” Temper said.

“I hope this (the regulations) will mean a radical change.”

Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz called the anti-greenwashing rule an “undemocratic mandate of silence” that creates unnecessary uncertainty for businesses. A joint statement Thursday by Schulz, Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean and Premier Danielle Smith called C-59 “part of a program designed to create chaos and uncertainty in order to completely phase out the (fossil) energy industry.” (So you’re saying an industry can’t exist if it’s forced to tell the truth? I had to ask – Ed.)

The Calgary Chamber of Commerce said the new rules are “different” from the climate ambitions of industries across all sectors.

The chamber said the rules would also limit disclosure of climate goals and ambitions to investors and financial markets, putting Canadian companies at a distinct disadvantage compared to companies operating in other jurisdictions.

“Changes in Canada Competition Act will have far-reaching impacts and pose a risk to environmental progress that has been largely worked on by industry,” said Chamber President Deborah Yedlin.

CP notes that the debate over green claims in advertising is heating up around the world. Earlier this month, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged countries to ban advertising by fossil fuel companies in the face of the climate crisis.

The main body of this report was first published by The Canadian Press on June 20, 2024.