Our latest report, Getting to Market: Emerging Investor Risks in the Tar Sands highlights the latest challenge facing the tar sands industry and warns investors to look more critically at industry’s ambitious claims. Download the full report Tar sands extraction projects are moving forward with increasing pace. The industry ambition is to grow production from today’s level an extraordinary 140 percent by 2025. Environmental impacts are a concern, particularly greenhouse gas emissions and water. Spills from existing pipelines have put pipeline route communities on high alert. The over 1 million gallons spilt into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in July 2010 is still

In the most comprehensive assessment of Alberta’s climate change policies to date, a new report by the Pembina Institute concludes that Alberta’s current approach will deliver less than one third of the greenhouse gas reductions the Government of Alberta has committed to, but strengthening current policies could enable the province to meet its climate targets. Responsible Action? An assessment of Alberta’s greenhouse gas policies provides a detailed evaluation of current regulations and financial incentives to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and identifies key opportunities for the Government of Alberta to strengthen its approach to climate change.

he Alberta government could protect the environment and achieve responsible oilsands development by adopting key policy changes, recommended by the Pembina Institute

How TransCanada Pipelines bullies farmers, manipulates oil markets, threatens fresh water and skimps on safety in the United States.

A new report, Dirty Business: How TransCanada Pipelines bullies farmers, manipulates oil markets, threatens fresh water and skimps on safety in the United States, examines the tactics and motivations of TransCanada Pipelines, one of the continent’s largest pipeline companies, as it pushes for approval of its proposed mega-project, the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

A change of direction on climate policy is in the works in Ottawa, prompted by developments in Washington, DC. The Government of Canada is now designing new rules for carbon polluters.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that global consumption of crude oil will increase 27% over the next two decades, from 83 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d) in 2009 to 105 MMbbl/d in 2030 (IEA, 2009).

Each year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes its World Energy Outlook(WEO), several hundred pages of analysis of one of the world’s largest industrial sectors.

We show that the oil sands industry releases the 13 elements considered priority pollutants (PPE) under the US Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Water Act, via air and water, to the Athabasca River and its watershed.

Greenpeace today released a comprehensive analysis of Canada’s energy potential that challenges the need for dirty oil from the tar sands and shows that Canada can create tens of thousands of green jobs, while providing over 90 per cent of the country’s electricity and heating needs from renewable sources by 2050.

Open pit bitumen extraction is capable of causing mass mortality events of resident and migratory birds. We investigated annual avian mortality in the tailings ponds of the Athabasca tar sands region, in northeastern Alberta, Canada.

Over the last few years, Canada’s federal government has systematically tried to kill clean energy and climate change policies in other countries in order to promote the interests of oil companies. Its efforts are assisted by the Government of Alberta, and both governments draw some of their arguments straight from tar sands companies themselves. By now, it’s common knowledge that the Government of Canada is a laggard on climate change action, thanks to its weak target and the lack of any real plan to meet it. Similarly, the Government of Alberta’s multi-million dollar public relations campaign in support of the tar sands has received quite a bit of media scrutiny.

A new report from RiskMetrics Group, a financial research firm, warns investors that some leading oil sands companies may be particularly exposed to financial risk from toxic waste water liabilities.