11 October 2011 – Keith has welcomed the European Commission’s recent proposal which would ban imports of fuel from tar sands to Europe. He is now calling on EU member state governments to introduce this proposal. Keith has recently campaigned on this issue, urging the EU to take into account the full extent of the greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands in the current EU-Canada trade negotiations.

Keith said: “’The proposals from the European Commission are an important step to ensuring the true environmental impact of this dirty fuel source is recognised and that oil from dirty tar sands does not find its way to European petrol pumps. Given the high carbon intensity of oil from tar sands and shale, it is clearly necessary to distinguish these from conventional crude oil. I’m now calling on the UK government ,which has claimed to be the ‘greenest government ever’, to approve these proposals.”

Keith, a member of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, has recently raised the issue of environmentally destructive tar sands in the EU trade negotiations with Canada. In March he urged the Trade Commissioner to make sure that the trade agreement currently being negotiated with Canada does not threaten crucial EU climate policy or boost Europe’s involvement in Canada’s destructive tar sands industry. In July he hosted an event on tar sands at the European Parliament, which was attended by indigenous people who are fighting a proposal to build a tar sands pipeline across their territory in British Columbia, representatives from the UK Tar Sands Network, the Council of Canadians, and other NGOs.

Tar sands, also known as oil sands, are an unconventional fuel source that generate up to four times the amount of greenhouse gases as conventional oil. The production of tar sands contaminates rivers, releases toxins into the air, and turns forests into wastelands. At the present time, Canada is the only country with a large-scale commercial oil sands industry, and has fiercely lobbied over the past year to maintain their exploitation of tar sands.

The final vote by the European Commission on the proposal was almost unanimous. It still needs approval from national governments, and it will then go to the European parliament for final approval.