The Oil And Gas Obstruction Network Blocking Canadian Climate Action

Résumé analytique

This investigative essay by DeSmog reporter Geoff Dembicki documents how Canada's oil and gas industry, led by the Pathways Alliance, runs a multifront communications offensive to delay and obstruct climate legislation while expanding production. The Pathways Alliance represents companies operating 95 percent of Canada's oil sands, an industry that in 2023 produced a record 3.3 million barrels of oil per day, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, and remained Canada's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Using the Semrush analytics tool, DeSmog found that in the first three months of 2023 the Pathways Alliance was buying Google ads against climate search phrases such as "net zero," "carbon emissions" and even "environment and climate change canada," directing searchers to a site claiming producers would spend $24.1 billion on climate solutions. Though its Facebook page has only 631 followers, one June 2023 ad reached an estimated audience over one million and generated up to 150,000 impressions; the group has run more than 300 such ads on Facebook and Instagram. The essay notes more than 80 percent of a barrel of oil's climate impact comes from burning it, that carbon capture would neutralize only production emissions, and that industry plans to add up to 1.2 million barrels per day even as a TD report projected output reaching a record 5.4 million barrels per day.

Behind the scenes, companies fund think tanks and advocacy groups practicing what Dembicki calls "climate crisis denial" — including Shell ties to the Fraser Institute, Canadian Natural Resources giving $450,000 to the Indian Resource Council (2020–2023), and ARC Resources' $100,000 to Canada Action — that smear climate and Indigenous activists to obstruct transformative legislation.