Study: Canadian Tar Sands Industry "Pathways Alliance" A Case Study In Greenwashing Huge Climat, Pollution Impacts
Canada’s largest oilsands companies are “misleading” the public about their industry’s environmental impact, according to new peer-reviewed research. A new paper published in the journal Energy Research and Social Science has found the Pathways Alliance of oilsands companies engaged in multiple instances of “greenwashing” in their promotional efforts, obscuring the true nature of the oil and gas sector’s carbon pollution and the true costs required to eliminate it. “”Their messaging omits important information, uses misleading framing and comparisons, and fails to meet standards expected of a credible net-zero plan,” the study said. “It is possible that their net zero plan is a strategy for allowing increased emissions in the near term,” it added.
The Pathways Alliance is a group of six oil and gas companies representing the bulk of oilsands production. The group plans to build a large carbon capture and storage network to capture emissions from oilsands facilities and send them down a pipeline to an underground storage area. They have campaigned for extensive government financial and regulatory support to achieve this plan.
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The researchers found the alliance did not report information on its members’ pollution, and its plan to cut emissions is missing data that could show the baseline pollution levels the plan would be tackling. “The most consistent indicator of greenwashing is Pathways’ repeated failure to account publicly for all emissions,” they wrote.
Emissions from the burning of petroleum products made from the oil companies’ crude oil, which is where the vast majority of fossil fuel emissions come from, is not accounted for, they added. Instead of informing Canadians about their environmental performance, the oilsands companies are engaging in “misdirection” that is “detached from the reality” of the impacts their operations are having on the global climate, the researchers wrote. “In most cases, the emissions and harms from the burning of their product are simply unaddressed,” they wrote. “Pathways often fails to acknowledge its net-zero plan covers only a small percentage of oil sands emissions or that these emissions might have increased since the launch of their net-zero plan.” The study also found the Pathways Alliance has not publicly made the full cost of its plan clear, or how much public funding is necessary to complete it.
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https://thenarwhal.ca/pathways-alliance-greenwashing-allegations-study/
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