EU to put higher pollution price on tar sands

The European Commission on Tuesday (4 October) proposed that oil derived from tar sands be given a higher greenhouse-gas emission value, a move slammed as "unjustified" and "discriminatory" by Canada, the world's largest producer of this fossil fuel.

After more than a year of internal wrangling and amid strong lobbying from the oil industry and the Canadian government, the 27 EU commissioners agreed to qualify tar sands as a quarter more CO2 polluting than crude oil. The draft bill stil...