The December 2025 Memorandum of Understanding between Alberta and Canada is a bitter mouthful of greenwashing; a concoction sufficiently noxious to repulse all but the most gullible.
Among other things, the MOU supports increasing tar sands oil production while simultaneously reaching “net-zero emissions” from that production, constructing the massive Pathways carbon capture and storage project, and getting the private sector to build another bitumen pipeline to the coast, primarily for export to Asia.
According to the Pembina Institute, production of Alberta tar sands oil emits more than four times as much CO2 as most other oil production in North America. While there are some ways to reduce the amount of CO2 required to get the tar out of the ground and into a pipeline, they are expensive and experimental. Most are decades away.
The north coast oil-tanker ban must remain in place.
The oil companies, while still making record profits, are asking for handouts from both levels of government to develop and implement new extraction methods. Unless you believe in magic, increasing tar sands production while getting to net-zero CO2 is a laughable and reckless contradiction.
The Pathways Alliance says that their project involves 400 km of new pipeline to transmit CO2 from the Fort McMurray tar sands operations to Cold Lake, where – hopefully – it will be permanently stored underground. Pathways is projected to cost around $20 billion and eventually could sequester about 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
The project is cited in the MOU as a vital link in reducing the carbon footprint of tar sands production, but in fact it will only be sufficient to offset about 12% of the current annual CO2 emissions. And these are only the emissions from the work done to get the tar out of the ground. These emissions do not include the 550 million tonnes of CO2 per year (equivalent to the combined personal emissions of 39 million Canadians) when the fuel is actually burned.
And then there’s the pipeline to the Pacific coast with giant tankers filled with diluted bitumen – stuff to make an oil spill from hell – sailing along 150 km of pristine coastline before reaching the open sea.
We could see a tanker every day or two, depending on the size. I don’t know which of those options scares me the most, but I support the First Nations in demanding that this must never happen, that the north coast oil-tanker ban must remain in place.
No matter how it is transported, tar sands bitumen will be refined in some other country and then burned. The resulting emissions will add massively to the global climate crisis.
This MOU is toxic, just like the tar sands. Its sole purpose is to increase the political standing of Danielle Smith and Mark Carney in the minds of Alberta voters.
Dr. Steven Earle is Professor Emeritus in Earth Science at Vancouver Island University, and the author of two books on climate change and two Earth Science textbooks. He lives on Gabriola Island.
