A DRIVE to extract oil from unconventional fossil fuel sources in the face of soaring prices could have catastrophic effects on the Earth’s climate, a report warns today.
With oil prices hitting record highs, extracting tar sands and oil shale is an increasingly attractive option.
But according to a study by WWF and Co-operative Financial Services, the fuels create up to eight times as many carbon emissions in production as conventional oil.
If all the 1,115billion barrels of recoverable oil estimated to be in Canada and the US were extracted, the report estimates it would release 980billion tonnes of CO
It claims the emissions could push COlevels well past the point where global temperature rises of more than 2C are triggered, putting the Earth at risk of mass extinction of species.
According to researchers, oil giants including Shell and BP plan to invest £62billion in the fuels by 2015 and produce hundreds of thousands of barrels a day by 2020.
WWF and the Co-operative are calling for a global halt to the licensing of the production of the fuels, legislation to prevent them being sold in the UK and an investment in renewable energy.
Tar or oil sands, found in large quantities in the Canadian province of Alberta where they are already being extracted, are made up of oil trapped in a mixture of water, sand and clay.
The report said the refining of these fuels is energy and water intensive, requiring the use of fuels such as gas to manufacture the petrol.
The report’s author, James Leaton, senior policy officer at WWF-UK, said: “Unconventional fuel sources may seem attractive in the short term, but ultimately the environmental and economic costs are unthinkable.
“The solution is to develop alternatives, such as renewable energy, rather than continue to indulge our addiction to oil.”