How fitting. With a mere 36 more hours to go until the end of the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa and with intensifying international pleas for action on the climate crisis, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announces the approval of the Joslyn North Oil Sands Mine in the Alberta tar sands. What will this mean?

– It will add one and a half million tonnes of GHGs pollution each year — equivalent to putting over 270,000 cars on the road.
– Add 12.5 billion litres of toxic tailings waste each year
– Produce 2,740 tonnes of pollution each year that causes acid rain
– Destroy 7 thousand hectares of land, equivalent to 13,000 football fields
– Remove and pollute up to 22 billion litres of fresh water from the Athabasca River each year (source)

So while delegates from Global South countries give impassioned pleas for countries such as ours to rapidly reduce emissions in order to save their lands from devastating impacts of climate change — rising sea levels, more severe and frequent storms, drought, desertification — our government approves a new climate change-causing project in the tar sands. Not that this isn’t surprising, given Minister Kent’s tone in Durban and the fact that no mine or tar sands project has been refused by the federal government.

TAKE ACTION: Write Minister Oliver, let him know what you think about his announcement approving the Joslyn mine, [email protected]