As Newfoundland and Labrador awaits word from Ottawa on a proposed new oilfield off the coast of St. John's, Shears Mercer says he's not worried -- he's frustrated.
Mercer is the mayor of Brigus, a picturesque town on Newfoundland's Conception Bay, popular among tourists and day-trippers from nearby St. John's. The oil industry is important to his town, Mercer said. Its paycheques buy houses overlooking Brigus Bay and line the pockets of visitors spending their weekends in local bed and breakfasts.
Led by Norwegian oil giant Equinor, the Bay du Nord project is expected to put billions of dollars into the provincial purse and spew millions of kilograms of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year. The project is under review by federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, who must determine if it poses a significant environmental threat.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government is selling Bay du Nord as a "cleaner oil" project, saying it will emit less than eight kilograms of carbon dioxide for each barrel of oil sucked out of the ground. The global average for offshore oil is just over 16 kilograms per barrel. "If we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we have to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels. And the reality is that most of the existing reserves have to stay in the ground," Burch said in an interview Tuesday.
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