What are toxic fuels?
Toxic fuels are unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and shale oil. The emerging global trend to extract oil from these unconventional sources threatens global efforts to avoid dangerous levels of climate change and risks local ecological disaster.
If fully exploited, emissions from these toxic fuels could accelerate climate change to levels not seen on earth for 55 million years and threaten extinction for a significant proportion of our planet.
See the devastating environmental impacts of Canadian tar sands in our photo story and read about how indigenous communities in Canada are being affected.
Download our detailed and fully referenced report, 'Unconventional Oil: scraping the bottom of the barrel?', which we published in partnership with WWF-UK in 2008.
"The carbon emissions from shale oil and tar sands would initiate a continual unfolding of climate disasters over the course of this century. We would be miserable stewards of creation. We would rob our own children and grandchildren."
Jim Hanson of Nasa