Our very own environmental embarrassment

In early December last year, the Alberta government spent a huge amount of money on an attempt to clean up the province's oil-stained reputation. Television commercials and full page spreads in newspapers showed Alberta's Premier Ed Stelmach promoting the tarsands, an environmental disaster that has caught worldwide attention, possibly because it's now visible from space on Google Earth.

Stelmach's shameless promotion of the tarsands came conveniently just before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. It was a desperate attempt to redeem the appearance of the province in the eyes of the world. And whether it worked or not, the tarsands are an issue that Canada has dodged (remember those poor 500 ducks in April 2008?) again and again but is going to have to deal with sooner or later.

But it's finally starting to look like sooner.

Canada's Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice is now calling for the cleanup of the oilsands, but only sort of.

When the United States announced their target emission reductions last Saturday, Canada did the same. Literally. Canada matched their emissions target of 17 per cent below the 2005 emissions by 2020, in line with the Copenhagen Accord, the successor to the Kyoto Accord which is set to end in 2012. But in doing so, Canada actually dropped their original target, which was 20 per cent below the 2006 emissions. Creating a little more room to pollute and a little less of a reason to start the oilsands cleanup any sooner.

And right now Canada isn't taking any steps in cleaning up the oilsands ... at least not until America does first. Prentice says that until the United States announces new measures on climate change Canada won't do anything. And as far as any sort of cap-and-trade system (an emissions restriction with flexibility in how countries comply) goes, again Canada won't adopt anything until the States does as it could be harmful to international trade.

So despite the scrutiny that the tarsands has come under, it looks like not much is going to be done until the United States decides that it's time to act. And even though the tarsands has become Canada's biggest environmental disaster and the tailing ponds are now actually considered one of the biggest man-made structures on earth, even though Canada should be taking responsibility in cleaning them up, why not wait?